The Significance of Birds

 

Death comes in threes

she says solemnly as if somehow

mere utterance of these words

will cause the Sword of Damocles

to hang teetering, teetering over the head

of some soon-to-be-dead    unfortunate.

 

We do Last Offices;

lay him on the purest whitest sheet. 

First stage (Clinical),

turn him and he groans

as last air expels from lungs

and watch horrified

as blood spills in rivers through his lips. 

Can you now understand my pain? 

his dead body asks.

 

We lay him prostrate

as if in reverence to his God

and cleanse all that is corporeal,

gently pull his legs apart

and place padded pants. 

Oh the indignity of death

his dead body oozes.

 

Second Stage (Aesthetics),

he now supine, gazes

with unseeing eyes

as we again wash away his life,

trim brows and beard,

anoint him with essential oils,

dress him in his Sunday best. 

I am at rest now his dead body whispers,

I am ready and we usher in his family,

leave them to their grieving. 

 

My best friend wants me to lay her out I say

as we both drained,

clutch at warming coffee cups.

 

Y’know she says,

on my way into work today

there were magpies, four strutting confident.  

Four for death. 

Do you think…?

 

Just as I mean to tell her she is stupid

I see crow and catch my breath

as he tap tap taps upon the window.

 

Caw, caw, caw(pse) he advises

as he views me with his beady eyes,

and one not prone to superstition,

nevertheless, a chill shivers down my spine.

 

Anna :o]

 

An oldie shared with the good folk at dVerse OLN, hosted by the lovely Sanaa.  Cheers Sanaa!

Also shared at PSU's Poetry Pantry hosted by the lovely Rosemary.  Cheers Rosemary!

Image:  Courtesy of Flickr "Crows" by In Memoriam: Mr. Ducke is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Storm Brewing

 

Rain streams

in never-ending rivulets,

blurs

obscures vision.

 

The unremitting

rhythmic wurr

               wurr

               wurr

of wiper-blades

irritates, marks time

as you sit behind the wheel

fix-gazed on anything but me.

 

This is an oft travelled road,

I anticipate the coming storm,

sense the thunder,

wonder what will precipitate

the squall.

 

I watch the blades

raise the tempo

as they swish to and fro,

aggravate existing fury,

heavens darken, heighten fear

and you glance at me hate-faced

and I know the time is near –

tis not only skies that will blacken.

 

Anna :o]

Shared with the wonderful folk at P&SU Writers Pantry #45, hosted by the lovely Rommy – cheers Rommy!

 Image:  Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.

Author:  "Bad sky, wet road. #Traffic #rain #ColumbusOhio" by Howard TJ is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

Unbidden

Death will come unbidden,

it will not come today

it will come tomorrow.  

He will be tomorrow’s ghost.  

He half expects it,

his mind played out its scene a hundred times before.   

He cannot envision pain

rather seeing blood spill

from imagined gaping wounds. 

His wish is if and when it comes

it will be quick. 

It is.

This theatre, this theatre of war,

he plays but a minor role;

he is expendable, no glory in his death,

no rapturous applause 

at his final curtain call.

There will be no homecoming,

no coffin draped in national flag. 

His remains are no remains at all,

mere fragments scattered on a foreign land,

fragments that putrefy and leach into the soil.

He is here, on this hillside,

his life extinguished where this tree now stands,

he is part of it,

it absorbed his memory

tapped it through its searching roots,

its twigs and branches now his arms and hands.

He is unaware

as his leaves turn blood-red and fall;

it is the cycle of things,

lines quite never understood,

lines never learnt in war. 

He has become the Earth. 

It is the nature of things.

Anna :o]

An oldie, resurrected and shared on Open Link Night at dVerse - cheers for hosting Lillian!

Also shared with the good folk on Writers' Pantry #8 at P&SU. hosted by the lovely Magaly - cheers Magaly!

Image:  Courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons:

"Cherry Tree in Autumn" by Chickens in the Trees (vns2009) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0