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Genna Peterson May 2013
beauticians say
that we shouldn't sleep in our make up
but one day we'll be sleeping forever
and then
morticians will say
makeup is what we need
for our eternal sleep
Terry O'Leary Feb 2017
Awaking blithe each morning,
with eyes upon the World,
I wonder, are we mourning
with ebon flags unfurled –
or are they but a warning,
some draped like snakes and curled,
stray stars and stripes adorning,
sent from the netherworld.

I wander through the garden
with nothing on my mind
and say 'I beg your pardon'
alarmed at what I find
as winds begin to harden
and fate begins to grind.

Confused, I watch my neighbours,
they're wide-eyed, unafraid
to halt all useful labours
and join the death brigade;
the ritters rattle sabres,
the frail and fragile fade,
morticians tap on tabors,
the potentates parade.

The military blesses
(in tunics somewhat browned)
its crimson-stained successes,
hell bent and heaven bound.
Such scenes no more distress us:
a ****** battleground,
dissevered heads with tresses
and arms and legs abound;
the fourth estate suppresses
the heaps of bodies  found
(collateral excesses
discarded in a mound).

Society regresses,
now living by the sword,
with torture and its stresses
upon a waterboard;
a captive kid confesses,
his innocence ignored -
fallacious facts and guesses,
the guts of justice gored!

With canting vindication
a big brass bully brags
(with pearls of perspiration
and swollen tongue that gags)
of third world  subjugation
for gelt and oily swags,
of human rights' castration,
and on and on it drags.

The manifold migration
of refugees in rags
while searching for salvation
soon finds compassion lags;
uprooted populations
are fleeing from their flags
else dying of starvation
as naked hunger nags.

With trump cards politicking,
two little hands (all thumbs)
may send the Mad Dog siccing.
Insane! All sense succumbs.

Atomic timepiece ticking
until the Reaper comes
as Geiger counters clicking
drown out the droning drums.

Cast out for not conforming,
I wander day by day
to find the earth deforming
as nature wastes away,
with bees no longer swarming
(expunged with garden spray)
and ocean depths transforming
(neath plastic overlay).

With CO2 performing
the climate's led astray,
the atmosphere's been warming,
the grasses ashen gray,
eternal tempest storming
while permafrosts decay,
and ozone holes are forming
in deadly disarray.

The people profiteering
descend a slip'ry *****
destroying, never fearing        
of running out of rope;
instead they sit back sneering
“our wealth’s your only hope”.

Yes, Armageddon's nearing,
it's doubtful that we'll cope,
for Evolution's jeering,
she's scanned our horoscope:
we'll soon be disappearing
with whale and antelope.


           Epitaph

The multitudes were jumbled,
some milling ’round the mall,
while politicians bumbled
when bracing for the brawl.

The World around us rumbled,
our backs against the wall,
as bombs were tossed and tumbled
across our broken ball.

My kneecaps creaked and crumbled
but I, too proud to crawl,
took but a step and stumbled  
yet found no place to fall.

And no one heard me grumble
although I tried to call,
or maybe I just mumbled,
as strength began to pall.

Well now the World’s been humbled
I seek an urban sprawl,
but since the feuds were fumbled
there’s nothing left at all.
MY FROG MASTERS

How thoughtful were the rainfalls
To water our gardens and flowers
The flowers spread wide garments
To celebrate their terminal beauty

The joyful frogs occupied my pond
To orchestrate their vocal prowess
They taught me to take blind leaps
Like lightning bouncing in the skies

Squatted, stretched, beeped down
I was a millstone on the pond floor
My slippery pond mates wondered
How soft I was in the maritime arts

Mortally rescued in a muddy mood
The clouds sent in rescuing showers
To confirm my firm loss to the frogs
Like a grain of salt cast into the seas


673. MONEY BAGS IN THEIR BODY BAGS

The money bags shopping for their body bags
Waggled through the makeshift supermarkets

Their ancestral homes they plotted modernity
Like the general gathering fine forces together

To the villages they made to return with pride
Like pregnant elephants caught up in the mud

Their desolate villages are deep and sickening
Glowing flamingly in the crucibles of local gins

The dusty and gravy pathways are like furnace
Burning the leather off from their frozen souls

Traditional birth attendants cut off their cords
And zipped the money bags in their body bags

674. A GLORIOUS DAY

The new day spoke powerfully
Like a war making superpower
And his voice roared forcefully
Like the skies forced to shower

The sunrays came dynamically
Like love responding to silence
Beauty crawled in submissively
Like the mixed arts and science

One eagle soared energetically
Like lions feuding in the colony
Far clouds relocated peacefully
Like souls betrayed to harmony

The breeze sighed thoughtfully
Like horses galloping on the lea
Inspiration unfolded thankfully
Crowns monuments with a pea

675.  THE FOG BANK

The sun had gone to pay our bill in the fog bank
The world foggily crawled into the strong rooms
Darkness demonstrated her strong mindfulness
Provided for the strong gale with lurking shrieks

The black paint billers snowballed to our dreams
With the bill of exchange for wild sunny excesses
Ghostly bats emerged with the bill of indictment
In demonstration of our acrophobic dispositions

We packaged the sunrays for our folk memories
To reassure the day of our eternal followerships
We cherish our follow-throughs in our dark beat
To usher the sunlight out of the hollow fog bank

676. THE PROTRACTED INTERNECINE FEUD

These things had happened before we were born
Like sulphur deep into our fresh hearts they burn
Now we stumble on the bumpy terrains in horror
Like one frightened by ghosts in a standing mirror

The internecine feud has razed our men of valour
With their carcasses dumped in their cold parlour
Our community cattle graze in the barren pasture
Like the unrepentant sinners awaiting the rapture

For our plight the once glorious sky is grown pale
Like the ***** fetching territorial waters with pail
The storms have rolled off the catalogues for rain
All our efforts to mop up the mess end up in vain



677. THE AREA LEADERS

They cracked coconuts on the heads for the crown
And embraced our days with their castaway pollen
Sadness and sorrow have dyed our garment brown
With the strongest song sung when night has fallen

These are the blinding dusts from our barn’s grains
They breed cunning serpents in the soft pasturages
They are failed cargoes on our broad societal trains
They dedicate our common committee to outrages

Now our days seek deliverance from their tentacles
Like the colourful fields immersed in gloomy beauty
They play our eyeballs with the stenciled spectacles
With our consciences to sight and found us off duty

To rescue us the colossal clouds were born gadarene
Our communal life was willed to pageants of gaieties
Then moonlight stories held us for a larger gathering
Now all the objects we sight dress up like cold deities

678. THE LAST DESCENDANTS

The rapacious thunderstorms ***** the skies for their tears
The hot embers were born to glow mourning the late forest
The moon crawled out of the blue like a great grandmother
Cuddling her descendants wrapped up in her ancient shawls

The wild waves were weird weavers weaving withering wails
The captioned wigs gyrated on stunning shoes upon auctions
The little creatures crouched in primeval baskets of the night
To gnaw at the generational tubers in the creative farmlands

The dazzling specimens of dentitions relaxed in water basins
Like bright red artistic architectures on potent ocean boards
Golden hearts glow in the threatening prisms of the furnace
As beautiful sunset defines her beauties in her nightly corset

It had been a sweet pill for the past descendants to swallow
Depending on the colonial masters for loaves, lore and lures
Our creativity had been packaged in their mortal depravities
Like the tranquil days resting sorrowfully upon the dark oars

The centenarian thunders downgraded our minute whispers
We had been kept upon our toes by the eternally sworn foes
At last our worthy artworks have worn their wormy catwalks
The refreshed dawns greet our easting days in their greenery



679. VICTIMS IN THE VALLEY

The victims in the dark rally
Caged, dried and browning
Therein their meanings tally
With waves born drowning

In the depth of a cold valley
Horrible nobles are cultures
Like pilgrims in the dark alley
Willed to ravenous vultures

The victims all robed in tears
With hearts like potter’s clay
For pains they have no fears
Only mimed games they play

For victory awaits the victims
Alien to a blind mimed game
Glorious are eternal rhythms
For death Christ died to tame

680. THE GIANT SCARS

These are our giant threatening scars
Engraved on our demonstrative heads
Our sympathies crawled on superstars
Weeping for us on their moonlit beds

They threatened us with nasal sounds
Like thunderclouds seasoned to burst
For us their galleries are out of bounds
Behind the iron bars plagued with rust

Our patience passed their wildest tests
Like the lions roaring in the thick jungle
On the heart of the Lord our faith rests
Like numbers posted on the right angle

681.  A LADY

In a lady’s handbag
Is her hidden hunchback
Stuffed with her heart ache
For the pains relieving groom

In a lady’s tender smile
Is hidden miles of similitude
Marked with the zebra crossings
For the ever winning marathoner

In a tender lady’s heart
Is hidden her cowboy’s hat
Soaring within the white clouds
To soothe the earth with the latter rains

682. BRING BACK OUR GIRLS

Bring back our homesick girls
Their vacant cradles are bleeding
Bring back our innocent girls
On the chariots of fire descending

Bring back our suckling girls
Their feeding bottles are weeping
Bring back our infant girls
Their mothers’ ******* are heavy

Bring back our harmless girls
The united universe is thundering
Bring back our dewy girls
In the sharp sun rising in the skies

Bring back our beautiful girls
Like light plucked from darkness
Bring back our glorious girls
Aboard the shore-bound waves

Bring back our worthy girls
On their fresh faces our lights seek to glow
Bring back our living girls
Our fountains of joy are bubbling to burst

For our returned girls the skies shall bear
Roaring rivers, singing seas, chiming clouds
With gongs and songs, pianos and praises
Dulcet dulcimers and documentable dances
With healthy hymns and eloquent embraces
All nations shall into a common cathedral flow

683. ****** GENEOLOGIES

They electrify their demonic high tables with old fears
Only their ****** genealogies are bookmarked to reign
The sight of their portables whetted our eyes to tears
We are reinforced by the clouds born to the later rain

Our skins have renovated the sickening cattle wagons
With our dreams flying upon huge smokes in the skies
Beneath their tables we abridge their creaking jargons
Upon their floors with our generational landmark tiles

The dew drops dropped like old crops upon our brows
To soften the veils falling to the flaming edged swords
The flaming hearted sword of the penetrating sunrays
Born to pluck us alive from our hotly bandaged bruises

684. LET US SPEAK UP

The light is climbing downstairs
And danger is sprouting abroad
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is melted on the glades
And terror grazing our eyelashes
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light is late and lately buried
The mourners are on danger list
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

The light has divorced the grave
Her grave clothes are dew dyed
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

Silence is a forgotten tombstone
Lost in the din of cold morticians
Our feet are listening for a word
Let us speak up lest they go deaf

685.  THE SUN

The sun smiles on all prescriptively
Like the waves spreading on shores
The green grass glows descriptively
Like the full moon upon dark sores

The sun is a tailor fixing the buttons
Preparing the sky for incoming stars
Like the weaverbird weaving cottons
To conceal the day’s damnable scars

The sun is a marker on diurnal pages
Tall grace he bestows on the flowers
The sun retains his graces for all ages
Bees and butterflies are his followers

Our common laughter is endangered
When sun bows down in big setbacks
All mortals have the starlets fingered
When the night comes on drawbacks

686. UNTIL HERE

(For Lou Lenart and his team)

Their floods came seeking Jewish bloods
Like streams they roared for our dreams
They emerged as columns of soldier ants
Like whirlwinds they zoomed towards us

Until here we were crumbs for the reptiles
Until here we were like airborne cloudlets
But here the sudden change unveiled to us
From here the elusive victory embraced us

With skeletal jets we fought like bold lions
Soared like eagles and spoke like thunders
We conquered columns of invading armies
The bleeding armies turned back and blank

From here we turned from victims to victors
From here enemies’ defeat our greatest feat
Upon this memorable bridge it all happened
Victories leapt upon our pool like joyful frogs

687.  JOY UNLIMITED

The fledging sun offers its rays
And the rays offer golden trays
For our joy a platform to spray
Rowdy paratroops like thunder
To scoop roses from pure oasis

Our joy is ripe upon celebrations
Our celebrations with decorations
Decorations with documentations
Documentations for all generations
Generations in our joyful habitations

688. ANOTER RAINING DAY

The dark clouds are wandering river basins
Spiral bounded by breakable outer casings
The rivers and the seas display empty cups
For the swift blessings descending the tops

The rains come as defense troops’ missiles
And the drowning lands look like imbeciles
Now we are groaning in the watered claws
With the liberated scales marking our flaws

The retreating clouds crawl away in a belch
Dumping the missing cargoes on the beach
The winds bow in a state of shock in a cord
Praying and fasting for a visit from the Lord

689. GRANDMOTHER

Grandmother, please wake and get up
The sky is quarreling with her husband
Soon they will spill their freezing sweat
On our bodies for us to catch dead cold

Grandmother, please sneeze not louder
The sky and her husband are quarreling
Soon they will send old floods like gales
To sweep mankind away from the world

Grandmother, you are everything I have
My moon, my sun and my morning stars
Provoke not the couples with your cough
Lest they refill their greasily wraths again

Grandmother, the big reptiles have come
With their lethal grandchildren following
They are laced with secret burial shrouds
With sympathetic tears tearing their eyes

Grandmother, I kiss you a shaky goodbye
With broken pains roaring within my soul
Grandmother, where are your groundnuts
To conduct my solo heart as you sing away

690.  A NIGHT WALK THROUGH THE FOREST

Lured away on an alluring dream by fables
I trudged along the grassy paths with fears
Upon my steps spilling the prevailing dews
The shadows bowed their heads in silence
Like the soul issued with a death sentence

The night crawlers emerged above boards
Throwing light upon contrary communities
In their hearts and eyes were painful tears
Crawling down their exaggerated eye *****
Like a handbag filled with rotten cosmetics

The shadows were bold animators’ shelves
Stage managing the horror motion pictures
In the ghostly commodities I met wild hosts
Lifeworks evaporated from my fresh breath
Like foreign tragedies in common comedies

The sorrowful shadows cast away their veils
Like the candles letting go of the weird wax
Sadly I sat in the sack for conflicting fetuses
Another sun appeared like a serial divorcee
Counting the testicles of another naked day

691.  SUBJECTIVE SUBJECTS

The sad sun descended upon her haunting melodies
Reeling from mysterious layers for electoral riggings
To harden the flowerbed for flower girls born tender
Disenfranchised voters came weeping in barren polls
Dressing the blank nest for the fat electoral parodies
With the mourners the faulty bells they came ringing
Like the angry water castigating a ****** port fender
And the smokes climbed upon their wide aerial poles
Arching over the emptied shelves with liberal singing
They subjected their subjective subjects to all objects
David N Juboor Dec 2015
My mom
Tells me I'm a gift.

She says love
Is what keeps the atoms
In you and I
Is the moment
She caught my
Father's eye
Is the day
My grandfather died
With a candy kiss on his cheek
She had never tasted something so sweet.

When we were little
We played kickball,
The ground is lava
And hide-and-go-seek.
As I grew I knew most days,
It was harder to find myself;
Let alone somebody else.

And I have been around
Enough center city playgrounds
To see the rich
Pump every bit of spare change
In their veins fighting
A cancer that they
Never learned to put in their past.
To see the poor
Wage wars with themselves
Trying to pick up
Way too much,
Way too fast;

Nobody really knows how to make love last.

So put your prism your heart
Beneath the moonlight.
Refract the wavelengths
Of your wonders
Into ROYGB-eautiful like the sea,
It took a lot of jellyfish to let
people see through me.

And even more mirrors
To find a place I was comfortable
Praying in.

Fraying in doorways
Where I learned hope,
Is looking both ways
On a one way street
Cause it can be so easy to thank God
While you still have bread to eat.

I have never prayed
So hard for a healthy meal
Than the days I remember
The heart is a muscle;
And sometimes the only
Thing we need
Is to "work it out."

And I know that some days,
My doubt hangs my
Smile like Jesus Christ
I never quite learned
How to bleed right.

But if there's one thing
I found from cleaning
The crosses out of the
Empty hallway of my character
Is that you haven't experienced loss
Until you've held two outstretched arms
For years waiting for your innocence to come back.
Nothing, weighs more than the guilt of your past
And nothing throws punches
Faster than the ghost of who you used to be.

And I know it's hard
To stop looking for yourself
Under every bed you
Left nightmares in
And I know it's hard
To be comfortable
In your own skin

But sometimes bars
Aren’t the only thing
That builds a cage
And sometimes
The only way to live
With yourself
Is to stop digging
Your own grave.

You can spend years
Listening to morticians
And never get grounded.
Surrounded by the
Square roots we all share,
By the same air,
We've all got to learn to let go.

To learn that
Holding your breath
Has never been how
Living things
Learn to
Grow
"We're all hurtling towards death, yet here we are for the moment, alive. Each of us knowing we're going to die, each of us secretly believing we won't"
Forever Yours Feb 2015
If you sit in a hospital room long enough it looks a lot like a funeral home
If you hear a doctor say they don't know what to do anymore enough times it sounds a lot like a mortician asking about the funeral arrangements
When you watch the lines on a heart monitor flutter out of rhythm enough times it feels a lot like your own has stopped beating
When you sit in an ambulance reciting someone's medical history enough times you almost want to beg them to drive slower
As you're standing in the middle of the funeral home you'll realize it's more calming than a hospital room ever could have been
When you hear the sirens and it registers in your mind they can't possibly be coming for her you'll look down and finally see what you've done
Glenn McCrary Aug 2011
Along a narrow, vacant street at 2 a.m.



Underneath the threatening lights of peril



An act of ******* was taking place between



A beautiful cigarette and the orifice of my lips





Halloween had not yet dawned upon us



Yet as I walk Jack-O-Lanterns smile at me



Displaying minor quakes of bloodthirsty evil



While a serum of scorn soaks my tongue





With a heartless trick of ice, cold malice



Summoning the entire town to its kneecaps



Devils regurgitate lullabies resembling the sound



Of nails ****** a chalkboard sparing no mercy





Arousing the hopeless romantics



To awaken a graveyard



And **** the corpses until they're



Resurrected from their comas





As the nymphomaniacs ice



Their frozen flesh with *****



Painting an ocean of abstract thoughts



Across the edges of their frames of mind





Do morticians make up the majority



Of necrophilia related crimes?



Maybe so but, I bet they had never felt



A ****** so dry and so cold





Yet still the thrill of chills tickle these criminal's spines



While they measure their screams careful not to awaken



The beautifully disgusting corpses that lie before them



They turn their heads only to find a pair of scarlet eyes





Gawking at them from within a cowardly shield of fear



Darkness was it's home, Mother to all its desires



In my opinion it was just a phase; A massacre encaged
Sacrelicious Jul 2012
Running North,
aura lights
are taking me home.

Six feet underground.
Pine box mannequins,
all done up dead and pretty.

Morticians's pride,
a job well done.

Such a shame,
it was a closed-casket
viewing.
Noandy Oct 2014
For tragic is just a trapped magic
Let's try harder to break the cage
Where it dwells in
Just like the hopes packed
In a coffin

So come all jolly lads
and whimsical princesses

take out your torches under the streetlights
for the lamps have withered out
and nothing can save you
except what you believe in the unseen

so come all jolly ladies
and whimsical princes

dance with the revenant before they vanish
for nothing can be done unless
you succumb to the delusion
and the foul mess you created
for the purpose of self-destruction

So join in morticians and
Men of desolated sorority

Grab out your shovels to dig up the magic
Stolen by the faeries of the day that reside
In the caverns of gloom and doom
Where trickery binds our wrists
And lead us to the dead-end

Painted with magic

And will be painted again for ever more
With our tragic fate of trapped magic

So I say,
“Come, come, jolly lads
And whimsical princesses
Join in, morticians and
Men of desolated sorority
For nothing can be done unless
You have something to hold on in life
In darkness or in light
Visions of hell or heaven
Deluded or disillusioned”
Until tonight they were separate specialties,
different stories, the best of their own worst.
Riding my warm cabin home, I remember Betsy's
laughter; she laughed as you did, Rose, at the first
story. Someday, I promised her, I'll be someone
going somewhere and we plotted it in the humdrum
school for proper girls. The next April the plane
bucked me like a horse, my elevators turned
and fear blew down my throat, that last profane
gauge of a stomach coming up. And then returned
to land, as unlovely as any seasick sailor,
sincerely eighteen; my first story, my funny failure.
Maybe Rose, there is always another story,
better unsaid, grim or flat or predatory.
Half a mile down the lights of the in-between cities
turn up their eyes at me. And I remember Betsy's
story, the April night of the civilian air crash
and her sudden name misspelled in the evening paper,
the interior of shock and the paper gone in the trash
ten years now. She used the return ticket I gave her.
This was the rude **** of her; two planes cracking
in mid-air over Washington, like blind birds.
And the picking up afterwards, the morticians tracking
bodies in the Potomac and piecing them like boards
to make a leg or a face. There is only her miniature
photograph left, too long now for fear to remember.
Special tonight because I made her into a story
that I grew to know and savor.
A reason to worry,
Rose, when you fix an old death like that,
and outliving the impact, to find you've pretended.
We bank over Boston. I am safe. I put on my hat.
I am almost someone going home. The story has ended.
Taylor St Onge May 2021
The color of death is not black, is not white.  
                                                        ­                        Not red, not gold.  
Think: ashen skin.  
                               Think: where did the blood go?  
                                                          ­                       Think: pale, so ******* pale.
Bruise again.  He’s going to bruise again.  
     Mottled red   and      purple   and      blue   and      green   and      yellow.
That’s what the body does after death.  Blood runs down
to the lowest bend of the body and bruises the skin.  

The rust of cerebrospinal fluid as it sloshes
                      back and forth
       in the bag hanging above the bed.  
                                                      My mother’s hands:
white knuckled and gripping down on washcloths
to prevent her from breaking the skin of her palms.
The constant hum of telemetry,
                                the soft whoosh of the ventilator.

The human body has roughly 7% of its weight in blood.
The human body has no ******* idea what to do when
there is too much or too little of really anything.
Think: blood vessel bursting.
                            Think: cells mutating.
                                                  Think: proned patient coding after intubation.

Bruised.  His hands were bruised from all the needle-sticks,
from his lack of platelets.  And a single transfusion only goes so long.
                                                           ­   Goes three weeks long.  
The hands on the belly, laid so gently, so carefully are
covered in makeup.  The hair is parted wrong with a cowlick.
I know how they created that soft smile on his closed mouth.
                                                                         I’ve read the books.
                                            I’ve heard the talks from morticians.  
They’ve made my grandfather tan, but
I know what’s underneath the foundation:
                                                                                  grey.
writing your grief prompt nine: choose any color. let your mind follow that color to a memory, or a scene, or a story of any kind
mannley collins Jun 2014
that's how callously compassionate and vainly godly
humanity has become under the Oligarchy.
nice men and women of all five colours,
sitting around comfortably in alcoholic stupidity,
with their thumbs up their bums,
trying so hard to keep shtum,
about the undeniable fact that
they cant drum up a drop of ***
between them.
Seriously babbling religiously godly nonsense,
wreathed in smelly Tobacco smoke mimicking incense,
abandoning pretense at conscience,
hating empowering commonsense,
lacking all  but nonsense.
with the mien of morticians
and the mendacious psychobabble of politicians
and the inspired madness of medical technicians
making badly placed cerebral incisions
and worst of all supporting
oligarchy inspired decisions.
About the "end  of  days and nights"
being put up for offers on the  "free market".
Dedicated to Democratic and Non-Democratic Govts everywhere
and their frothing at-the-mouth supporters.
Julie Grenness Jan 2016
The old man's getting married to a fat ******,
Ding, ****, the wedding hearse does shine!
That' what he gets for perving!
Get him to the morgue on time!

The old man's getting to a fat ******,
Ding, ****, the wedding hearse does shine!
The undertakers are steady,
Both the coffins are ready,
Extra wide for  the big fat groom and bride!

The old man's getting married to a fat ******,
Ding, ****, the wedding hearse does shine!
The bride is wearing her thongy,
His sons are bringing their bongies,
Get him to the morgue on time!

The old man's groom married to a fat ******,
Ding, ****, the wedding hearse does shine,
The mob are bringing Marijuana pesto,
The transvestites are saying hello,
They can be mothers of the bride!

The old man's getting married to a fat ******,
Ding, ****, the wedding hearse shall shine,
Yes, that's what you get for perving,
The morticians are all ready,
The coffins are standing steady,
Get him to the morgue on time!
Bit of light hearted fun.
statisticians, assistants to quack physicians & staph-blind clinicians
John F McCullagh Jun 2013
Nothing in life
was as sweet as your kiss.
So soft, so yielding, so fine.
Nothing so warm as your
cherry chapped lips.
That I savored when,
once, you were mine.

I paid my respects
at Your wake yesterday.
The morticians are good at their art.
You, sleeping princess, beautiful still,
through the decades that we've been apart

Except for your lips
which so oft I had kissed;
The beautician left them
grim tight and dry.
Both of us know they were
nothing like that.
That's when I let myself cry.
Paying my last respects to a former love.
JL Jul 2012
I was always one for subtelty
but this was almost too easy
Click went the locking mechanism
Shattering the lock
Almost too easy
As behind me it silently shuts
Follow your scent
Through the sterile halls
A pin drop
Security gaurd Mag light
Down a quiet dark corridor
I cover my mouth with my hand
To cover the laughter as i hide
Almost too easy
I FIND IT
The door opens
This is almost surreal
I feal the cold
My breath is a cloud
So quickly in and out
Stiffling laughter
My wide begging eyes
Jessica
I shake with anticipation
The cold habdle beneath my skin
The bag
The frost
Unzip
white flesh
red hair
blue lips
purple veins
i am at a loss
for words
as i stand above you frozen
Still with you
I will die here
warmth on your translucent skin
was it my finger
Or that of another
that traced the outline of your black lips
or the frozen glaciers of your hip bones

Suddenly a light behind me
The gaurd screams stop
I laugh hysterically
i can no longer hold in my euphoria
No one will take you from me again
not even the stone hands of your step-father
i scream wide eyed
With resolution
and speed that surpised even me
My fingers curl about the handle of a scalpel
Left so carelessly out on the counter
By the morticians assistant
on his first day
a bullet rips me through my shoulder
but i fear no pain
i am no coward for you
no fear as i close in beneath the white flourescnent lights
No one will seperate us again
the warmth of the spray
black puddle against the tile so white
Your eyelids flutter
as i watch my final breath condense befoere my eyes
A cloud
my final breath
I fall asleep at your side
Eternal
Mitchell May 2011
Slow moving manics
Dance more frantic
When they know
They don't got a nickel to spare

Aware of the hair
Missing but still fair
Where women make love
God watching from above

So late now
Yes so late it is now
Love gone and away
I couldn't stay

You talk to me
And you write to me
As if you truly knew
Every ****** thing

That is the thing
That I just can't seem to understand
That is the ****
That made me give the final nod

Who are these people
Among the desert steeple?
Do they pray for themselves
Or is there truly someone else?

Money made me do somethings
While passion some others
Irresponsibility is guilt
Cast down from the man wearing the stilts

Believe in the sleeve
Of the beggar shaking next to you
For he can see
What we'll all soon be

These promises of luck
Or handed out
From the ten eyed ghosts
That have never felt the ****

The vacuum of morticians
Piling body after body
All covered in mud
Obsessed with this drive called love

House with a machine
That translates that into this
Get out of my house machine
I need life to believe
Julie Grenness Dec 2015
Appeared to be a normal day,
At our University of the Third Age,
Grannies and grandads writing epic lit.,
Forgot our hearing aids and blankets...
We walked away from the class,
Drank our coffees on the grass....
One old moll began this thing,
We cast off inhibitions and wedding rings,
Decided to have a greys' love-in,
One last winter's love fling,
Before hearses the morticians bring,
We were all senile, obese and ga-ga,
Our grey scrawny ***** made us ha-ha,
We gave those grandpas some thrills,
We all forgot our cardiac pills,
The old boys were gasping for breath,
Moribundi, close to death....
So, appeared to be a normal day,
On the grass, after class, at U3A,
Love-in amongst the greys,
It was grey liberation day!!!!
A light hearted look at love in old age. Feedback welcome.
Graff1980 Sep 2015
We were born to die alone in the dark
A dissected corpse, a desiccated heart
Loose limbs tightened with rigor mortis
Broken bones and emptied bawls  
Becoming a morticians doll
To be posed and paraded before
Our loved ones
Mitchell Mar 2014
Is it alright to ask
The foreign bride
If she prefers to be alone
On her wedding day?

Is it fair to ponder
If love is truly impenetrable,
Even in the late morning when
The fog is just burning off?

Is it crude to question
What color ******* the cheerleader's
Wear for their boyfriends
For the big day holy homecoming?

Is it rude to question
Fees for morticians and their
Nightlifes so nondescript
It's alive?

Is it false to query
People looking weary,
Propped up like mannequins
In store windows?

Is it true to be false or
Is it false to be true?

What if where you end
Is really
Where you are supposed to start?
teardrops on a bedroom pillow
blood drops into the bathroom sink
my heart drops into my stomach
my voice drops to a monotone whisper
my body drops to the floor
my mother drops me off at the hospital
morticians drop my body into the casket
the priest drops the casket into the earth
the worms drop into my hollow chest
Megan Sherman Mar 2017
From whom did I dare seize the fire
Which casts light on truths to be sung to lyres
The revelations are suffice to inspire
Paeans to be sung around the pyres
There was thunder in my brain
When truth cantered inwards like a train
Albion pointing to the warriors slain
And to his wound, his immortal pain
From the torch the truth doth bright exude
A light that is a sort of useful food
That renders visions in which sense brews
That with divinest meaning woos
Promethea a warrior magician
I am also the strangest of physicians
Bearing heavy the weight of contrition
When faced with the plans of the worlds morticians
I traverse my path to get my heroine
On this troubled, but essential quest I begin
There is nothing that we can win
But we can redeem our conscience of the devil's sin
But Devils' sham religiosity will not survive the ravage of time
Earth's rustic children are the truly sublime
To dare to strike them down in their prime
Is the most heinous of mortal crimes
O, my god, I bear to you
The angel, the angel, spirit true
Through my heart a warm breeze blew
For having seen a soul so true
Now you can ascend the stair
And find your way to perfect care
In the castles of the air
And find peace in angels luscious blare
Dark n Beautiful Apr 2019
The dead embrace the dirt
They will never sprung like
April tulips, on a frigid day,
Or survive as long as Hyperion roots

(The beginning of love is horror
of happiness (quote: Robert Bly)


So, let my poetry filled you up: with the knowing
(The dead are for morticians & butchers
to touch. Only a gloved hand)
before the dust….and ashes

Be more afraid of the living,
with their cold and warm hands
and deceitful minds above all things
they  spit and vinegar tongues

The living embraces the struggle of staying alive
Due to the many heartache and sorrows
~~~
(When those we love betray our trust,
We find the depth of human pain;
Oh, let me rise above these hurts
Until the sun shines, once again!
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "My Prayer" (1940s)

*
So , let my poetry filled you up with knowledge of knowing
The dead cannot harm you any more,
Way down upon the earth floor,

Let the tulips once again bloom
However, let the earth worm do the rest.
Under the tallest tree in the world: coast redwood
Hyperion:
And it will waste away, and they will all go back to resume their corresponding programming, and dig themselves in in their favorite distractions. This deeply buried corruption they 'grieve' over, no where near from being exhumed—just as the morticians have devised. Sad isn't it? But it always has been.
Ivan Brooks Sr Feb 2018
I hate this world
because of smartphone
this might sound odd
because it's our home.

We have all become stoic
and self-consumed
men of power, mere comic
nobody's amused!

I hate this world
but I love humanity.
the lovechild of God,
his purpose, its entirety.

We came here to live
and multiply and be happy.
We came to have fun and feel alive,
I hate that we've all become ******.

I hate this **** world
because of Donald Trump.
He's void of a decent word
I hate that he's so **** dumb!

We have to be politically correct
and most time racially sensitive.
About many things, indirect
About few things, proactive.

I hate this crazy world
but it still turns us all on
Just like an outdated centerfold,
That we can't afford to just burn.

I hate this world because of politicians
They lie to us and live off us.
I love this world because of morticians
In the end, they do a very good job for us.


©️IB-Poetry
2/26/2018
This world is a crazy place.
nivek Mar 2017
to feel the morticians warm hand
on your cold dead flesh
closet goths
EP Robles Oct 2018
WHETHER morticians wear
the makeup of cadavers
or madness is the friendliest
voice makes no difference
you are sick
to believe loud colors
have no mouth
and the trunks of people
grow deeply rooted roads
that have many toll booths
the rich pay for free things
and the poor steal dreams
those dead envy the living
and those alive
feel so dead.


:: 10-27-2018 ::
Akira Chinen Aug 2018
The fresh new day
of school has come
and for some children
in the days ahead
oh what fun


until...

BANG!BANG!

Your kid is dead
oh why oh why
didn’t we listen
to the dead

why oh why
didn’t we do anything
but think and pray

oh how oh how
didn’t this problem
go away

no more bobby
no more sue
as we throw our hands
in the air again
pretending there is nothing
we can do

but hope and hope
it doesn’t happen
at our kids school

BANG!BANG!

money beats on its drum
while the greedy dance
on the graves
of the futures
they stole away

politicians giving
hollow speeches
while shaking hands
with morticians
who give the dead ones
a pretty smile
and dress them
in their dead days best

and cheat the live ones
of a good education
one plus one is two
and if you
make enough money
you can get away
with ****** too

BANG!BANG!

we watch in
horror and disbelief
at parents stricken
down with grief
because their child’s heart
no longer beats

we just cant believe
its true
surely this didn’t happen

again

at a school

No, no...

I could have sworn
just the other day
I heard my neighbors say
these can of things
DON’T
happen here

my neighbors over there
standing above the grave
of their child
they never imagined
would die this way

BANG!BANG!

the time has come
to teach ourselves
a better solution
than the letting
those with money
control the violence
of the gun
Bogdan Dragos May 2020
what would be the reason
to have an open casket funeral?

Why should the living
see the dead?

He addressed the questions to no one
in particular
but his dead wife answered from the
picture on the wall
"Don't you wanna see me, darling?"

"Not like that, I don't," he said. "That's
why I have your portrait. So I don't
have to look at your
dead body in the casket. But your
mom wouldn't understand..."

"Darling, I think you're the one
who doesn't
understand. And I think it's
time we talk about your therapist."

"What about my therapist?"

"You tell me. You tell me why did she have
to tell you that she's single now
and looking to settle. I thought she
was supposed to
help you cope with the premature death
of your wife, not tell you her
problems."

"Dear, please..."

"And one more thing. I don't like
the medicine she
prescribed you. Have you even read the
label? That ****'s dangerous, you
know?"

He stormed out of
the room and
went straight to the morgue
and told the morticians to seal his
dead wife's lips with glue or
something

They looked at him like he
was crazy

"What is it?" he asked

"Well, sir, to glue the dead's lips
for the open casket ceremony is
just... standard procedure. Else the mouth
opens and it's not a pretty sight. Did
you work with the dead or something?"

He thought a bit
"Yeah," he said. "Something. Something
like that."
AND THIS: https://terrorhousemag.com/rainy-season/
- JP DeVille Aug 2017
Once upon a time,
there was a man who wanted to live forever.
So he set out to find a way;
he visited monasteries,
studied many religions,
countless beliefs,
he even spoke to many mystics and magicians,
elders and morticians.
He spent his entire life
looking for a cure for death,
but he never could.
He realized death is the cure,
not a disease.
We are bound to be alive,
prisoners of our living freedom.
He spent so much time looking for
a way to live forever,
he forgot to live at all.
Corrupted insights see the mind in excites rites
Immutable bylaws falling jaws from the laws
All caught an applause another right taking away
Deep late Sunday they writing the evil grey
Between black and white stuck with the same sight
Even a blind man could see the foolery
Cookery hickory sweet of the cake bakery
Icy cold world we live in folks wills pushing
Over toilet tissues and towels for clean bowels
Some even murdered over gallons of water
Food it's understood media unreasonable
No doubt check the tunnel rout broke the snout
Aimed at the black habitat wait for that stacks
Stimulus checks keeps us in check disrespect
Economy sinking from the gold eating oil
Spoils under demand supply Charlie man stands
Being closed imposed exposed to the new expos
Distance for instance brings more violence
Silent religion sneaks letters for the stool pigeons
Pigs can fly only when they bullets winging by
Another fry brothers to sistas die in all colors
Wake up it's ultimate shake up as I rake up
Book worm let the germs infect my intellect
Protect from the clean viruses corona
Daytona mind moving grooving soothing
Ya healing crank the adrenaline heart paced
At the fasted rate jalapeno burns court adjourn
We loosing humanity fast with no signs of returns





Politicians big business with morticians
See the folks wishing for a savior reminscing
On a guy who don't even live in the sky why
Ask why grey beards holding pondering
I'm still wondering who is this guy zoning
I can't see a thought let alone God I see me
Images of blemishes first to genesis
Feel this exodus experience death ruckus
Trust us folks in love with fake cannibis
False dealing for miracle healing mass appealing
Reel'd in emotions shattered by the killing
See where we headed to the end of the road
No toads just a plot to implode the globes
Sixty seven mirrors of horrors eyes of Horus
Got ya hooked mind gazed amazed glazed
Into the skies glacier off the rockers statures
Stand straight on shaky ground all around
Clowns in the circus blowing up they circuits
Misfits girls in the see through outfits
While boys tryna hold back on they biscuits
****** hyped while love is smote n sniped
Like Wesley the best of me couldn't even see
Pass three years old now I'm ancient swole
Living off the papyrus scrolls my mind rolls
Off into another dimension intention
To strengthen bring pain to my minions
Victory dominions celebrated while I'm hated
Prices with wise guys keep me with a birds eye
View snafus from casino blues still on a cruise
Voyage to Atlantis drug escape from drug handlers
Pharmacy pill poppin' society socially decline
Rewind back to the beginning of mankind
Greed was plotted from the Greek roots shoots
Down the capitalism imperials just modern prison
Locked in out side freedom hubbles of troubles
No scope I'm dope mailing ya with rhyming quotes
Acme Jan 2021
Where all our monsters live
in luxury with wads of cash
if you stab a back or slit a throat.
Sell your soul pennies on a yuan.
Give the rubes a buck or two and
promise them what they need
to survive another term. You
retire a billionaire and they sell
businesses pennies on a dollar.
Suicides keep morticians rich.
I despise politicians.
wont get a red cent from me
(explained by following words you see)

No...not until the 
     bitter cold temperature, 
     sans iron maiden 
     (Polar Vortex) grips 
Southeastern Montgomery County 
     (Perkiomen Valley) Pennsylvania 
     will this foo fighting 
      goo goo doll, beastie boy - hips
 
stir survivalist 
     wannabe contemplate 
     cracking on the heat, 
     no matter mine lips
might turn me, and 
     false teeth chatter 
     (even after taking them 
     out of my mouth)
  
     as the mercury dips
way below degrees 
     (Centigrade, Fahrenheit, 
     or Kelvin) oh Lord 
     will passing thought eclipse
penumbra of mine 
     cerebral cortex reckon eyes,
the benefits to future
 
     cryogenicists voluntarily becoming 
     (a frozen human 
     Guinea Pig) realize 
zing molecular biochemical 
     behavior practically 
     comes to a stand 
     still, I surmise,
which cessation of
  
     ordinary senescence buys
time until some 
     future age, when scientists 
     long since didst devise
strategies to approach immortality, 
     (viz keeping "live" body 
     electric factory completely 
     preserved), and get wise
 
to hidden secret to exorcize  
death be not 
     proud, thus putting 
     funeral parlors out of business, 
     which astute morticians who espies
the future, and how 
     the quaint practice, 
     asper burial plots
  
     (oh...so yesteryear), 
     and dramatically dies
down quickly giving rise
to the burgeoning enterprise
re: bajillion dollar franchise,
where death cab for cutie 
     offers ***** prize
a coffin (grateful dead set)
     "feign" to eulogize.
Fruitless effort squeezing figurative juice
Pandora called triggering
helter skelter to get loose
necessitating Bullwinkle J. Moose
to usher at yours truly
(an aspiring wordsmith) vamoose!

Hey ****** ****** the cat and the fiddle
went off to see a crooked man and woman
whilst cowards jumped over moo-ving little
pair of mismatched
calf fully ambling muggles,
who both walked from scan
din navy yah,
(nor-way could action be stopped
otherwise den-mark would be left),
where dog goniff imps
jousted with brittle

shaky spears, den did mark
neither path to norse east, where pan
demon yum erupted over adult
playing monkey in the middle
and bear witness to such sport
as dishabille donned dude named Evan
spoon fully ladled insults adrip
with indignity of loosing - bubbling spittle
spluttering trumping monitor
to claim game rigged,

which assault whipped a ban
she against being accosted
from mish shuga,
a towering ebony Amazonian,
who didst tittle
late tad evincing groan nips quibbling
over what appeared to be a van
knit tee fair of bruising egos essentially
fighting for dominion
over right to urinate i.e. piddle
and defecate in non

gender specific restrooms wan
ever the urge
to empty the bladder or ****** -
(even if poo peas, the size of a skittle)
fraught major firestorm ratcheting,
synonymous with dandy rhyme
blues clues without reason -
dime a dozen cents less ditty -
snap, pop, and crackling
as hot cakes on a griddle.

Actually, the above
juiced a freaky Friday sideshow
displaying, hurraying, layawaying,
portraying and tracklaying dis-obeyed
rubric of respect, where decent
honorable linkedin maturity laid
waste to politesse, whar all stops pulled
sans presidential debates shade
no light on meaty issues,
but mudslinging as faux hit parade
housing and trumpeting an offer

to make America Great Again
thru yelping vanguard,
uber up lyft promulgating,
and intimating 4 years
times 52 long weeknd rock'm sock'm
bash re: hollow wean
qua vamp pyre avast
state farm riotous quacking,
whence life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness decayed

into growling pedigreed mishmash made
for kickstarter bullied
prize **** fighters
indeed jimmying stockade
bag of tricks viz contesting scalawags,
tearing like rabid animals inlaid
with bared teeth,
and mouth frothing foam,
who just barely evade
coming to fisticuffs,

while presenting scathing hair-raid
nada so hill a re: us political pugilists
making up rules on shutterfly
spotify, and not afraid
toot change horses in midstream
to fix outcome of game
of thrones spouting
unfair sands casino trade
thus, billy-clubbing husband
of opponent indulged

in many a rapacious escapade
smear tactics and mistruths
essentially, he sung hiz zone
battle hymn of republican party,
a mockery and charade
driving donnybrook conspiratorial
billed Jefferson muttering arcade
guarded by ensconced
male and female Petsmart Weimaraner,
attired in a Thom malt chew wuss
Nast tee getup

elephant and donkey costumes respectively
while viewers entertained,
who succeeds as next blade
runner, and earn chance
to run country into the ground,
then a fancy feast for morticians,
one world wide webbed graveyard
moss lee tubby
taken back by Mother Nature,
thee indomitable ace of *****.

— The End —