162. Pity for a Potted Plant


down I walk

through fields and trees

when there! I see

a poor potted plant

oh, so shriveled and cold

its posies darkened

with chewed marigolds

and lilies drooped down

to smother a rose

in its abandoned array

I see myself

a colorful collection, spurned

for no other reason than impracticality

daily water, daily sunlight,

are those things too hard to provide?

don’t worry small plant

you stray bouquet thrown away!

my sill is yours tonight

And so the man removes the collection of flowers, vase and all, from its perch on the headstone. It is added to his embrace of flowers found before, and he moves not far before making the exact same promise to yet another offering for the dead during his wander through the graveyard.


137. A Grave Disorder


I visit the cemetery
Scarlet evenings –
Maggots start to dance
When stone angels sing
Under Mausoleum lit
Pitch cats softly prowl
The barren trees rattle
From bass hooting of an owl –
Yet, something’s amiss…
Odds fish, what’s this?

Crackling beneath step
In orangeish Autumn gown
Six headstones faceflat –
Buried into sacred ground
As if to force a bow
Where man had fallen first
And, when Winter blows,
Subjugated miss the worst.
As if six feet under snow
Were any better way to go?

Markers sore wrinkled –
Three crosses, three plaques –
I push three upstanding
Until I pull my back.
Must leave the other three
Where they’ve fallen there
‘Cause everyday I be
Sole help anywhere.
My only question: how
Those plaques befell to now?

Could it be the spectres
Sighing in the crypt?
Demons screwing round
With wolfmen, guises stripped?
Parasites from pitchest space
Long dormant, now disturbed?
Or the inner beast of man
Who lusts for the perturbed?
To deter those ghouls
I disobey the rules.

I tip over graves I propped
Under the harvest moon –
To that chaotic eve
It might be called a boon;
Better those mounds a mess
Since darkness loves chaos
Than fix them up again
And cause that force to fuss.
On a cemetery’s ground
This hallowed dusk lasts all year round.