Standing sacred amongst the dead,
A mausoleum built, protected,
It watched and witnessed the years as they passed,
It remained silent against life so vast,
A vigil reminder that the dead can be kings,
The wealth of many don’t think of such things,
Remembered in death as they were in life,
This fixture wept beyond their mortal sight.
Of broken hearts and dreamy fog,
The Mausoleum held inside, a bog.
-
I witnessed it upon the path I walked,
The dead-end, so to speak, it frightfully stalked,
It almost glowed a neutral grey sheen,
Aghast, I looked past with thoughts of being,
I emptied a heartache upon a pillar,
It reached to me and my hand now withered,
It called my name once in the silence,
The voice so hollow, in hallowed solace.
While this garden with dead did proliferate,
I opened what was once the tomb’s inner gate,
I stepped inside not knowing what came
Next for me in life’s theatrical game,
Surprised to see it held a catacomb,
I walked its halls in vain, entombed,
Cephalic attacks of thoughts herein,
Requested presence of answers therein,
Creatures and demons alarming inside,
We take the most identifying and hide,
We look to find we are the same,
In life, in presence, in thought, in vain.
-
I saw the bodies that rested yet here,
They seemed so at peace to sleep for years,
One cadaver at the end of a hall,
Seemed to beckon to me and warned of fall,
The steps leading down, treacherous at best,
I looked at it more as if it were test,
Test of strength, a test of will,
But my insanity would not keep me still,
Hidden between his skeletal palms,
Was a page ripped out of Bible, the psalms,
His favourite, I imagined, but it shook my spine,
Because he appeared so clandestine,
So surreptitious, the look upon his face,
He hid no remorse for passed mistakes
His teeth decayed like his mind did in life,
His bones festered and caused him great strife,
Were it not for the pedestal that held him up,
I wouldn’t have seen aside him a cup,
A cup full of sanguineous red,
The shuffles on the floor from where others fled,
I took his cup and drank from it well,
The taste of old blood, congealed, from Hell.
I then could not have had foretell,
That this would put me in a dreamlike cell,
I stumbled on the floor and rocked,
My thoughts of reality were then so blocked,
I couldn’t hold concept of anything,
I fell asleep and awoke in a dream.
-
The Nightmares, transgressions of the dead that lay
In this catacomb, suffered a fray,
A war between families large and askew,
The swords of fathers to sons imbued,
They bred them with hate and raised them with blood,
They fought their battles as sons best could,
One of them had their internals leave
Their stomach, and organs were bereaved,
Because of a ”friend” that with a knife,
Decided against his opposing strife,
He feigned a hug and with his fist,
Wrenched his weapon and did persist,
To tear his friend apart, depraved,
He cut out his heart and his father gave,
His son his burial rites,
The other family far from contrite,
Desecrated this mausoleum,
The battlefield turned to Coliseum,
The young fighting old and not knowing why,
The women and girls lost much and cried,
Their men would not have any of their words,
Ironic to not hear pleading songs of birds,
The families lost while being forewarned,
Both now lie entombed, both thought of as scourge,
The mischievous gaze the skeleton gave,
I now understood, I thought I was insane,
Even in Hell, he battles them still,
I learned not to let idiotic persistence cloud my will.

Bounds and bounds of names of the forgotten,
I wandered through the dredges of solemn
Wastes that had entangled my thoughts,
The antagonistic braves of loss,
The ones who’ve left ones petrified,
The ones who’ve died, left crying alive,
I have also forgotten each name,
The false memory of these people, all the same,
Dead is dead, this flair for the living,
This selfishness bears no arrogance deceiving,
I am one who welcomes death,
This fortitude alarming to some who step,
Along the edge of insanity,
I am the abyss, the abyss is me.
So strong I was, walking head high,
Disregarding tokens left behind,
Until a sight then stopped me cold,
A sullen grave but marked ”Unknown.”
-
I couldn’t move,
I was frozen in place,
I was then proved,
My heart, indeed, was laced.
Not even I, who so asked for sleep,
Could even stop tear
From escaping me,
I couldn’t stop but wont to weep.
-
Aside from the sorrow ”Unknown” had caused,
What’s worse is that he had someone,
Here I was, alone and hateful,
Someone remembered, and was grateful,
For the stone had upon it but five little roses,
Alive and well, not dead like the others,
Some person some where had remembered ”Unknown”
So that not even ”he” was left alone.
-
Destroying everything I have believed,
Spiteful, hateful, and aggrieved,
I stepped back and cursed him in jealousy,
Fell back, I tripped, shocked, and conceived,
That perhaps I was thinking like a child,
Everyone deserves there life so mild,
Who was I to curse anyone?
All in all, I wanted everything undone.
-
The real beauty in this situation,
Is that no one earns stagnation,
No one knew him when he was buried,
But someone now shows care and hurried,
To his site to show their love,
I just hope he’s diseased, but Above.

Meandering down the trail of old brick,
Saw I a siren of death and sick,
Her skin so pale, it looked diseased,
All was nothing compared to her beauty,
She lay across a hill on a blanket,
Her raven hair at each of her flanks and,
She had open a tome of what appeared to be names,
Also undressed, I looked away ashamed,
She wore only a set of bedroom garments
And eye coverings, all black adornments,
Scars radiated through all of her features,
And sat beside her were to handsome creatures,
Pups of age and loyalty,
To Her, I guessed, they owed fealty,
Ferocious beasts they, they peered at me,
I was but calm, unfaltering,
Twas only then did she spare me a gaze,
She smiled then also, and beckoned me stay,
For whatever reason, I felt necessary,
To comply to each whim, each want and need,
She rested on her stomach across a grave,
One that jutted out among the staves,
One leg kicked up, the other lay,
She appeared so peaceful, given the day,
I bowed my head, keeping eyes for respect,
She acknowledged without any contempt,
I stepped forth and approached Her, not to intrude,
I walked presently so as not to be rude,
I arrived and lingered until she spoke,
“My darling, you and I have prods to poke,”
She said ”I’ve watched you since you arrived,
And long before, I must contrive,
I’ve fancied you for quite some time,
So in this yard compose me a line,
I’ve planned to see you here through,
And to make sure your mind yet is unglued,
You see, I’ve all right to be intrigued,
Your mortal love does yet suit me,
You’ll learn to love me as you do my father,
Of Him you know, you’ve loved much longer,
Of Him you have written countless rhyme,
And now, in love, I’ll have your time,
Then be off, for we can’t be,
So sad, truly, we are misery,
Alas, I will hear you now,
Speak your rotting words of love, perhaps a vow.”
Shocked, I stumbled in my mind,
Speechless, I groped for a rhyme,
To compose for a lady that asked me such,
Much less, for one with love’s interest,
I searched across the vast of land,
For the most somber sorrowful strand,
“Sweet dying flower, December’s tears,
Grant me a visage of festering years,
My decaying heart rots at the loss,
Knowing the pair of us are lost,
If this be the only sight of you,
Granted my eyes this one time through,
Every night hereafter I will weep and weep,
Until I may see eternal sleep,
Your endless eyes, and body fine,
Would I reminisce of touch, and taste wine,
Until I may lay in bed with you in,
To wait forever sounds like death and ruin.”
I whispered my last line and there she quaked,
“Oh,” she said ”how my heart does ache.”
We looked at each other and then i knew,
Who her father was, and then Her too,
She was the keeper of the dead and dying,
Of which my heart knows not of crying,
Fancied with me as I was with her,
Her father, Death, my greatest Sir,
One day, I thought, I’ll make her mine,
The three of us then, will rule darkness entwined.
-
Like she said, I then had to leave her,
At least until i died and could see her,
She bade me well with a full lipped kiss,
Her touch of lip so cold, and bliss…
Upon the path I again stray,
Enjoying my otherwise darkened day.

Set forth, I endlessly walked about
In search of salvation for my doubt,
I heard not once the birds in chirp,
Nor did I hear a prayer usurped,
I struggled to find a cause for all,
I found clarity in a sunken wall,
It was aside the path entangled,
So close to the edge, it nearly strangled
The sunken road upon which it lay,
But kept along those lead astray.
-
My footsteps seemed to echo on
The mass of bricks they stomped upon,
Once, I’m sure, a gorgeous red,
The bricks were grey now, neutral and dead,
Favouritism struck some paths here and there,
Popular people, families, and fare,
Though some stood alone, the weeds grown around,
Forgotten names and unsodden ground,
They hadn’t lost yet their sense of foreboding,
The lone standing pillars of remembrance, eroding.
“Food for worms…” I muttered and quoted,
Alas, the meaning, I couldn’t have doted,
For ”seizing the day” had it not meant to me,
But rather a gloomy sense of mortality,
I felt as though nothing ever mattered,
The human existence, dark and clattered
About the same misery,
We all must live, but we’ll never be free.
-
Searching out the scenery,
I, lost in thought, was scant to see,
How beautiful the day then was,
Broken down and all because
The sun didn’t seek the pavement’s shine,
The wind slightly whispered through the vine,
The grass, most dead, gently bobbed,
The light, the corrosive clouds did rob,
And it struck me in sections as to how it is,
To seek, to find, to know what love is.
-
Admiring this path, its twists and turns,
I rather likened it to Life unnerved,
It seemed as though all ends to life,
Congregated amongst all terms of strife,
Like all waterways unto the ocean,
They all met here in tumultuous commotion,
Lessons and morals could always be learned,
But this experience was what I yearned.

A vile serrated day that suffered
The wind and the air to be stifled,
Spread sick among the ashes of burning,
And held silence upon the screams of yearning,
Yelped frigid chorus of agonistic moans,
In pain and torment, of rotting bones.
-
I walked along a path paved of marble brick,
My temperment unnerving, my gait was thick,
The path aforementioned halted upon a gate,
There opened, I saw, where the dead gestate,
Leading down a snake-bodied trail,
Tried as I did to turn back, I failed,
I saw no reason to leave the place,
The corpse garden, it seemed, held great solace.
-
Trudging down in acute contempt,
I struggled to see all but lament,
Comforted, dare I might say,
With being surrounded by extent of decay,
I flowed forth as if some purpose,
Guided me to them, the reason unsurfaced,
At where I found them sitting aside,
The trail of things in past belied,
Quiet, and leading to the body swamp,
With scars detailing drunk mourners’ clomps,
Chipped and chiseled, repaired and mended,
The Stairs awaited me and repented.
-
The first step sat on the top of the hill,
Where the path veered, silent and still,
A narrow case were these stairs so shrill,
A horror oozed from them and fear me filled.
I could not but wonder why irony had found,
That in the graveyard, it started profound,
Aside this step a great living tree at each flank,
And aside the bottom a matching pair, but dead and rank,
Like a gateway from living world to dead,
This whispered somber secrets to my ears full of dread,
I took the first step and it’s concrete creaked,
Rather odd, I thought, a sound for stone to secrete,
Or was it a muffled wince of pain,
From another mortal stepping again?
-
The weeping willows here feigned not their name,
For I heard them cry again and again,
The tragedy in bark and each branch,
Etched inside were names and romance,
Initials of lovers on the first two trees,
Rotting off the second set like some disease,
The twins were mirrored like that in a story,
But this was reality, this was horrifying,
I knew their fate even without a headstone,
They loved and died, and only the trees had known.
-
The perils of this place seemed haunting,
The grass so green and at peace, seemed daunting,
I took each step with trepidation,
The caution here lingered with anticipation,
At the last step I was greeted with a chill,
The faint breeze had just marked another ****,
As I stepped forth once more on to the earth,
It seemed as though the staircase lurched,
I knew then I could not leave,
Until I’d seen all of what was bereaved,
The only thought I could think was one,
Were I to die here, I wouldn’t be alone.

The feeling in which I wish to describe
Is not easily penned, nor said and why,
It’s not like something I’ve ever thought,
But it’s always been inside me to end, and wrought,
It is always present to ruin my thought,
And finally a vague depiction I’ve caught,
So please endeavor to bear with me yet,
As I endeavor to preparedly set
A most dreadful tone and thought in mind,
And deceive you of what you hide entwined.

Imagine if you will,
And humor me still,

Awake to find solace in the wrapped arms
Around you that caress your dreams and skin alike.
The warmth of the body that lay to you next,
Is soft as silk and softer even in mind,
With cherished thoughts of love and tender,
With valued honor to be defender
Of someone you see as perfection in life,
And one who you wish to spare from all strife.
-
And as they lay there still asleep,
You imagine their dreams, and cherish their peace,
You slowly drift off to join them again,
But wonder why you had first awaken,
What took you from your nap of naps,
What pulled you from a cloud’s collapse,
And with that thought you start to hurt,
All the worst things from dust to dirt,
Creep upon that sleepy head,
To reveal themselves as living dead.
Thought you they gone,
Gone had they not,
Ever present and likely sought,
The solace of your weary eyes,
And behind, the mind, cause of all despise.
-
For me, I held on to those arms
That felt like they’d never let go.
So why then did I need to hold on,
If solitude’s answer was “no”?
I felt as if it couldn’t last,
As if happiness was not as vast,
As promised as in the poems I’ve read
As fore-held as high as mountain’s lead.
I thought that if I could just hold on,
She might not let go, she’d see and keep on,
Maybe, I thought, she’d awake and smile,
Her groggy eyes beglazed and docile,
A visible love passing her sight,
Connecting through me and shooing the night,
I saw as it was a glorious bolt,
Of lightning, although as thin as smoke,
And smoke it was as dissipating,
And truth be told disappointing,
Because it was not that she even fluttered,
The fault not hers, but I still shuddered,
I imagined it all without her there,
Her kind fair eyes, and scented hair,
It didn’t seem right, not true or correct,
To have her absent and not connect,
But alas, it was with great found sorrow,
That she vacated on the morrow,
She left me in a pool of blood,
But figuratively I should say, could
It have been that all I was
Inside for her and that was,
The sanguine that cascaded upon departure
Of my love, of my Cupid’s Archer,
I sat for weeks and thought of that night,
Where I awoke and wondered this very plight,
I almost lost my very sight,
When rubbing my brow and temples so bright,
That I had in some sort an epiphany,
That this was this forsaken feeling,
That I have had throughout my life,
Of never allowing me to be all right,
Of nevermore allowed to be happy,
Of forevermore condemned to be misery,
In this, I found contemptible content,
She’ll pass and pass to my lament,
At least a spy might I be granted,
But to loneliness, I can’t understand it.

For what I know, which is not much,
I know not of what you feel and such,
But if I could be better a brother,
I would ask what makes you shudder,
I know not what causes your pain,
But I know you’ll not be here again,
So in this life, be strong, be strong,
And although I can not carry along,
What I wish I could, I’m not that good,
At expressing all that of which I should,
Know that my love extends to you,
And your indescribable heart imbued,
Keep it between us, I know what it is,
To cause yourself pain, and taste your own tears,
I wish life was easy, alas, it is not,
Lose not yourself, don’t let be forgot,
The life you know, I pray you don't,
I had no idea, of pain you smote,
To it cast out all of the remorse,
And if need, come to me, if no other doors,
Reopen for you although they should,
If need of favor, know that I would,
As brother, as friend, be there until,
Your happy, long life, end fulfilled,
I wish to be an uncle, and brother in law,
To a great man you deserve and more,
Lest it not be pain from a boy,
You are but young, they’ll use you like toys,
Be strong, be strong, our family is love,
Spread your wings, magnificent dove.