Percival Jordan - 1892 - 1912

Poem 18 Percival Jordan 1892 - 1912 I am where I am Because of who I was. I imbibed a million breaths And observed the stars dotting the night skies Like actors taking the stage for another eternal encore. I am in the air As I am in the ground. And I know the truth now. Life was an impossible possibility. Born of pleasure and fear and desperation. And I’m relieved the ridiculous race is over. I spent most of my carefree days here in Clark Cemetery. Helping Artilissa water the flowers. And as a boy I played amidst the sunken graves. I sat in silence like a scheming spider Under the stretching shadows of the old tombstones. I wrote poems to the dead And read the Psalms aloud With my many lady friends dressed in silk Sitting scandalously close to me. Under a darkening full moon shade one evening I kissed Ethel Woodstock on the lips And I released my emerging manhood With a simmering sigh. I felt strangely odd when Ethel died that night, Enveloped in her mother’s helpless embrace. I placed a rose bud upon her mahogany casket And I cried as a light rain descended Upon the drinking gorged ground around us.. Indeed I was the annoying little boy in the graveyard; That flim-flaming rascal With the cocky smirk of a broken gentleman. With costumed enterprise, I tricked many a passerby With repeated low-moaning dirges From behind the Hadley tombstone. Their screams were hilarious but they never caught me. God knows I had plans. Plans to be a lawyer. Plans to be an electrician. Plans to be married and to find peace of mind. But when I awoke one cold morning in 1912, My bed was soaked in warm blood, And all my plans were forever harvested by the Grim One. I love Clark Cemetery in the autumn. When the leaves turn dark and deadly. When the rippling landscape illuminates the truth and finality of all things. Life is just a fast-moving storm And none of us has the time to notice the returning rainbow. Oh, for a simple cup of coffee again!