Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Poem #6-2013 Mortality

On waking this morning:
a hintergedanken
Something, slippery ... unspoken
Looming just out of consciousness

Drove to the nearest cemetery
Lay down in the grass atop John Siemens
Never heard of him before
He was mortal like me

Climbed up and sat on his headstone
My feet dangled
Heels bounced on the etched dates:
1945 - 2004

His entire life unfolded in that one-inch dash
Didn't even make sixty years
Wonder if I will
John said it was unlikely

Other dead spoke to me
Mothers and fathers
Gone angels spinning
Around my disbelief

Jumping down
I left two footprints
Dug into the grave
A defiant act not contained in John's dash

Bought an ice cream cone on the way home







                                      Submitted to Dversepoets.com Open Link Night #97

6 comments:

  1. ha. i have spent a bit of time in cemetaries....grew up with one by my house...and laid on a few graves...its where i used to write songs...listening to those dashes....death will come to each of us...

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  2. sounds like me, rick...just love cemeteries. people say 'aren't you afraid of bringing something home?' i'm not. cause they know i'm one of them...and don't know it.

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  3. I think it is brave of you to chose the cemetery to reflect and listen to the words of the dead ~ It comes quickly but in the meantime, I most certainly enjoy the ice cream cone ~

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  5. Good poem...I too am a cemetary person, I spend a freakish amount of time at Emily Dickinson's grave. Richard Marsh

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  6. Haven't visited a cemetery for ages; maybe I should?

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