\put your feet on the land/

His name, according to the scrawl on the cover of his journal, was Viele. His build, according to everyone he'd ever met, was a lazy mosaic of withered limbs; veins snaking like cracks in pavement.

His intentions, according to hindsight, were regrettable.

\and see/

It is the gospel truth that man is the expert of denial.
As sure as the dead stay dead,
The Graverobber will prefer the term 'opportunist'.
Viele was a "professional",
took pride in his "art".
He dug, dug, dug,
'til the wood did part.

Stripped the cemetery to its bones (or, if you please, of its bones).

\ain't no grave/

Then Viele snags his shovel, about three feet deep.
Somehow the handle asphyxiated by the stalk
Of a Morning Glory, which flowers a defiant blue -
swallowing whole, the rusting *****, as its spiral buds take
their first breaths - against, of course, the tarred lung
of their rawboned abuser.

And lo!
(the image befits the phrase, as does the Earth "empty of form")*
the deadyard stood guard,
erupting
like it was suddenly attacked
by an impressionist's paintbrush.

The deadyard, and Viele
Van Goghing, Goghing, Gone.

\gonna hold my body down/

In Lieu, In Bloom:
Baby's Breath and Bells of Ireland and Daisies and Hydrangeas and Lace of Queen Anne and Sunflowers and
God, ad nauseum they arose,
arching upwards from graves.
Leaving no gravestone unturned,
in the pursuit of the place
where footnotes become headlines
and headlines turn to deadlines
and deadlines turn to soil.

For in the morning,
when Viele returns
and Glory, ironically, stands down
(slash-stands-us-up)
we will know to wait.
Tucked away behind our rejected Heaven's gate,
for the show to return.

Where there's Life in the urn.