#tombstones
The peace inside me is cracking blue
the hatred of men and the loathing of women
***** lonely tombstones from coast to coast
and I can't help but think
our violets are rotting at the root
Oct 20, 2023
Oct 20, 2023 at 4:23 PM UTC
Snowflakes in
summer,
Tombstones
In grass
Though the names
are
Buried,
and memories past,
remember
remember
your name
too
shall last
Jun 13, 2021
Jun 13, 2021 at 2:31 PM UTC
Milestones Toward Oblivion
by Michael R. Burch
A milestone here leans heavily
against a gaunt, golemic tree.
These words are chiseled thereupon:
"One mile and then Oblivion."
Swift larks that once swooped down to feed
on groping slugs, such insects breed
within their radiant flesh and bones ...
they did not heed the milestones.
Another marker lies ahead,
the only tombstone to the dead
whose eyeless sockets read thereon:
"Alas, behold Oblivion."
Once here the sun shone fierce and fair;
now night eternal shrouds the air
while winter, never-ending, moans
and drifts among the milestones.
This road is neither long nor wide . . .
men gleam in death on either side.
Not long ago, they pondered on
milestones toward Oblivion.
Keywords/Tags: oblivion, milestones, markers, tombstones, radiation, fallout, nukes, winter, path, destruction, Armageddon, Apocalypse, nuclear, a-bomb, atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Bikini Atoll, Manhattan Project, Trump, planet, earth, war, violence, America, environment, holocaust
Apr 8, 2020
Apr 8, 2020 at 2:40 AM UTC
Riding the train to Mall of America near Minneapolis. Fort Snelling National Cemetery lies East of the tracks. Outside the windows pass these gravestones. Stark marble markers in the place of heros. Rigid rank and file, monuments on parade in mimic memory of the command to "Attention!"
And there are thousands. Row after row, column upon column, they march into the distance
Until finally, I closed my eyes and listened to the rumble of the train, wheels upon tracks, and to the conversion of a young family seated behind me as they talked about all the fun they will have at the mall. The Mall of America -- found out past the tombstones, beyond the graves of the fallen brave.
Sep 26, 2019
Sep 26, 2019 at 1:52 PM UTC
Upon the hilltop
Far over the golden horizon
Where the sun peeks out
From behind the blue crystals
Lining the cloudless sky,
There sit gray
Obelisks, towers of fractured stone
And gleaming silver flowers
That chant the distant melodies
Of those who lay below the grass.
The obelisks line in circles
And weep silently for what age
Has brought upon their faces;
Moss and cracks, dirt upon bouquets,
Names weathered down to pebbles
Vast plains of unturned soil.
At nightfall, winds break
Upon the hilltop's gates
And send forth siren calls
That plead for silent harmonies
Somewhere deep underground,
Below the grasses, below the tombstones
That rise and fall like waves
That sit silent, immobile,
As time strikes its silver chisel
Upon the forgotten markers of those
Who have been locked
Inside its ticking crypt.
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 8:33 PM UTC
Most guys
Want to
Persuade you
To do
What they
Want
Which is
Finish on
Your face
But i
Want to
Finish with
You face
To face
In our
Beautiful tombstones.
Dec 10, 2015
Dec 10, 2015 at 5:20 AM UTC
Too many times
I've been pushed aside
On the back burner
My whole **** life
But I wanna be the fire
That lights your soul
I want a raging, blazing
Inferno
Sparking flames
Making changes
In the chemistry
A little oxygen
So I can breathe
A lot of hydrogen
So you can believe
We're floating on air
Particles you can't see
Like love
It's a mystery
A theory
Of who's meant to be
And who's left suffering
That's destiny
I'm creating
Breaking
Changing the flames
Into ashes
And graves
With no names
Just broken hearts
On tombstones
And no chance
To restart
Jan 13, 2015
Jan 13, 2015 at 7:03 PM UTC
I’m choking on a fistfull of bones. There’s a skull
hidden deep in the back of my closet,
maybe in the abyss beneath my mattress,
maybe lodged somewhere behind my bookshelf,
that reads aloud all my past regrets
like bedtime stories.
I found the dried up teeth of my grandmother
on my vanity and used them like dice.
There’s a rib from my great aunt that I use
as a clothes hanger dangling on a hook in my bathroom.
When I was little the playset in my backyard
looked like tomorrow,
but weathered down and rusted, it looks
like a mausoleum.
There is a lock of hair on my bedside table that
is not mine, but hers, and I can’t help but
wonder if she wants it back. Does she want it back?
There’s nine-year-old smoke in my lungs and
five-year-old iron around my heart.
There’s a wishbone branded to my liver
to signify the what if? and a
skull branded onto my chest to
signify the what is.
I learned not to trust so fully the first time I
nearly drown and how to be independent the
first time I learned to swim.
I used to want to be a “daddy’s girl” until I
realized what that meant. The roses he gave me
for graduation went headfirst into the trash.
I have many things left unsaid.
Jul 21, 2014
Jul 21, 2014 at 1:20 AM UTC
No sickle bar churns
repetitiously clanging two notes
while grasshoppers and field mice
scurry to survive the blade
Now yellow bulldozers with humongous tires
roar like thunder in a rainstorm and
scrape away black loam leaving
clay as red as fresh beets
There is no funeral for the hay meadow
that is dead and put to rest
without a tombstone
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 9:24 AM UTC