PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

When you had first read that coy epigraph---

there carved upon an ancient, massive stone---

you had admired the few lines' artistry.

The words spoke like some zany comedy

and brought your troubled mind a brief, loud laugh

that broke your usual stern, and somber mood

but soon replaced it with a ghastly sense

like the gray sky above, leaden with gloom,

a shock coming upon you stealthily,

bringing a gasp that failed to draw a breath;

your thoughts reel, as the rest of you grows tense

the small poem is---really---an epitaph.

And, to your now distending eyeballs shown,

is your name, and your dates of birth and death.

Here, they whom you once hated had interred

your carcass long ago and rather far

from passing glances of society

(on this, they, all, agreed, and all concurred:

(they who despised you as uncouth and crude---

all your inferiors, so went your boast).

Unvisited, shunned, and unmourned, this tomb---

on this waste plain (sparse scrub, one lifeless tree)

beneath clouds that obscure the brightest star---

is all that you were and that you still are.

You know, now, not to hope this is some dream;

you know that no one, now, will hear your scream;

none, even, who believe that you could be

a lingering, unhinged, reprobate ghost,

haunting your self; and, still, wholly alone.

Starward