Best Exhumed Poems
Knowledge and wisdom are not found
in the chaotic crowd's cacophony of voices
caused by fear and frustration
They gather like swarms of locusts
on emotional wings of hysteria
Their beating sound swallows intellect
creating perpetual hate and anxiety
brought to them by their own failures and frailties
None...which they chose to recognize
or deem worthy of introspection
Crowds easily led by puppetmasters
who have spiraled down to the depths of depravity
as they pull on the strings of discord
tied to patriotic fervor
Exhumed in a kaleidoscope of hollow memories
from history...crowds don't remember
As they turn their anger into a coming apocalypse
where they sell their souls to their masters
as they did once before
When they called out " Give us Barabbas "
Let the Christ die with his last spoken words
" Forgive them... for they know not what they do "
9/25/17
contest 8 word challenge-4
*NOTE: Jack and I wonder how many of you have heard of the Zona Shue case –
an American murder victim who had revenge in Virginia in the late 1800s.
Zona was killed by her husband, Edward Shue, who then took elaborate steps to
cover his crime. In an attempt to disguise Zona’s broken neck, Edward dressed her
corpse in a scarf and high necked dress, stuffed her coffin with pillows (to support
her vertebrae) and refused to allow even the doctor near the body.
However, Zona appeared to her mother and revealed the truth. Following
exhumation and an autopsy, Edward was found guilty of murder. It was the only
case in American history where information provided by a ghostly apparition was
admitted as evidence for consideration by jurors.
Jack and I are co-sponsoring a contest on ghost poems. Our co-write "A Ghost's
Testimony" below will give you an idea what we're seeking in entries.
"A Ghost's Testimony"
"She must have fallen down the stairs:
A tragic accident," he said.
"I've washed her body, laid her out -
Oh, Doctor Knapp, my Zona's dead!"
"No accident! Shue broke my neck.
Mother, please hear my ghostly plea.
Take him to court and make him pay;
It's murder in the first degree."
“I’ve dressed her in her high necked frock…
Thought pillows by her neck looked fine…
She’d want to wear this scarf,” he wept.
“But no one touch the corpse - she’s mine!”
"Thanks, Mom, for bringing this to court.
The autopsy was not done right!
With malice Shue cut my life short.
Exhume my body; shed some light."
“Her mother wants to see me hang,
But she can’t prove my guilt,” he fumed.
“She claims the body sheet turned red,
And wants to have my wife exhumed.”
"The judge disagreed and allowed
My spirit world testimony.
Shue, my killer, was not so proud;
A death in jail for this phony!"
He prepared the pie
With greatest care
Within the pot
My brains and hair
For hers had been
A lofty perch
Just a peg or two
Would never do
Cremated remains
Formed the shell
Into the plate
My crushed bones fell
I could still see
But could not yell
The pie's aroma
A story to tell
My innards baked
Hour by hour
The smell of blood
And blackened flour
Words poured in
Enhanced the flavour
The humble pie
For her to savour
Fork to mouth
My body consumed
From the plate
My heart exhumed
The baker says
She's eating crow
The taste is bitter
She eats the pie slow
The true recipe
He does not show
Humble pies plentiful
Stacked row on row
The victims many
Some you may know
If he invites you
I beg you not to go!
For Sheri's Plentitude of Pie Contest,
I went with a halloween twist.
The flood of human remains plummeting downwards. Horizon blackened, jolted from the sky. Towering waves of obscure aftermath swarm to the heavens. With a slight endeavor, kingdoms turn to squander.
Ravaging paths meet and become hordes of ailment. God’s hand has erected the retched bowels of man’s mass burials.
An avalanche of skulls,
Rain down the exhumed past of lost ancestry. Prophecies fulfilled to our graves of dispersed dead.
I realize
I have real eyes
That see real lies—
~Nearsighted
(rule of law)
~Farsighted
(rule of lies)
~The "ayes" have it
(hidden agenda)
~The "ayes" have it
(secret addenda)
~The "ayes" have it
(hate crimes)
~The "ayes" have it
(critical times)
~Unmitigated truth
(entombed)
~Undocumented lies
(exhumed)
I realize
I have real eyes
That see real lies—
~As the world cries
***
12/13/2019
Photo "Imposter" by Gabriela Ferreira on flickr
A mystic rose smile that belonged to my mother this is what I recall
My easel and I resting in the spirit, by the grandeur of a morning tilt. As the
Yellow sunrays streak across the canvass, I think of Lamancha
Saffron and mom's tasty soups. Contentedly I paint away until a
Ticklish breeze brings me back to present stay. A lifetime away still I recall the
Indian sari she wore with shades of orange/gold lamer. Lustrous hair pulled
Carefully back, exposing two dark coaled eyes that shone like brightly lit topaz .
Red carnelian sun in tonal ranges splashed across a tapestry of love
Oxidized colors melding into the portraiture of Sahana, Matriarch of Bangalore.
Smiling at the camera a thousand watts from Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Her
Energy exhumed inside the sketch my recollecting fingertips
Subservient hands cupping my tiny face, "My little turmeric "
Maybe you'll be an artist some day, she spoke with her eyes
I like to think she was the reason I succeeded. Her every word a
Laud accolade. I remember the day I held my first paintbrush
Every time I pick one up today, I think of my mom and a village called Aluru .
November 19, 2021
The hours grows late and so the night bodes ill,
Another man falls, he did drink his fill.
And what fate do the streets take,
When the night cracks with a dawn break?
The rotten and unwanted fate,
Resented and repelled too late.
When the breath of man became disgrace,
Habitual of a hollow, heathen race.
And the cumbersome unrest of drunken sleep,
With a final sigh the streets does sweep.
Here unbidden wretches mark out their day,
In this sorry place they waste away.
As the city shifts focus from watchful eyes,
Concealing its dirt beneath painted lies.
Without a sound each night exhumed,
Then ritual veneer polished and re-assumed.
As the spring sun rises
Revealing wispy clouds
Fog that's settled in hollows
Roosters crow, doves' coo proud
With Easter approaching
Thoughts of thousands years
Ago bubble up in
Memory, some tears flow
A triumphant entry
Upon a donkey new
He had never ridden one
The donkey unridden too
Was it a day like this
Apricot sun in the east
Or were there gray clouds
Did the sheep softly bleat?
The throngs worshipped with
Hosannas, in the name
Of the Lord, but did not
Know he'd be blamed
Blasphemy, blasphemy
Those accusers cried
They could not see
The Son or even tried
They could not see ahead
The future hidden deep
They did not know the cross
Awaited nor of its defeat
But only a short brush with death
Placed in a borrow tomb
On that Sunday long ago
He arose, He can't be exhumed
time marches on
reality's fire consumes—
dreams go up in smoke
Dishonest weights, deceptive scales forsake
as chains of injustice rake the flesh
of the preyed-upon bleeding, amid wild
wolves feeding, soft sheep bleating,
protestor's pleading, jurisdictions cheating,
cajoling, wheedling, injustice repeating—
jurisprudence at the confluence
of affluence and influence
~undocumented lies exhumed
unmitigated truth entombed~
They have their thumb on the scale! We
have sussed every detail on the field of
debris, some so fiercely taking a knee,
others shot trying to flee! "I can't breathe,"
"I don't care!" Why don't they care?
Of what justice is meting beware!
One higher than the highest is watching,
waiting to signal the one riding to conquer
and complete his conquest. What's the true
future view? What more can we do
before we become past tense?
tragedies worldwide
flooding my senses daily—
fill my bag of tears
I am enticed by the iambics felt
in tides between my heart, your tongue;
I know dark orchids hem your stilted voice
and yet your kiss unfolds me lip by lip.
Each line you've breathed has been exhumed before
by a more faithful heartbeat than your own.
Am I in love with practiced whispers pulled
from mouths of dead romantics, rhythm cursed?
To sound the right musical note,
string of the guitar is made taut,
so likewise for our light to shine,
trials we face, make us self-taught.
Stuporous is mind, heart unkind,
insipid stance, clumsy our dance,
floundering about as though blind,
mindful eye alters circumstance.
Notice head and heart, stand apart,
misaligned from the pulse of love,
so simply tightening soul’s strings,
they begin to act hand in glove.
Choosing consciousness correction,
fixating on God our focus,
shifts life’s course and our direction,
flowing along the love locus.
Tension buildup can be useful,
if employed for a higher cause,
which reworded simply requires,
putting flow of desires on pause.
Desires exhumed, our thoughts too cease,
then ego dies, since it’s unfed,
whereupon we flow like the breeze,
love energised, by bliss beats led.
No one comes and no one goes
as Self dwelling in heart knows,
sipping love’s magic potion,
observing life in motion.
Passions squashed, ego exhumed,
presence with bliss mists perfumed,
nonchalant to quirks of fate,
the monk stands at heaven’s gate.
As bliss in-pours through heart’s door,
non-judging eye keeps no score,
holding all in embrace,
seeing in all hearts, God’s face.
With bliss as the monk’s consort,
stance erect without support,
attachments having let go,
his abode is the bardo.
Written: July 24, 2026 for a contest sponsored by Brian Strand
*************
Note: This is the Open (organic) VERSE created by Brian Strand and using spaces&breaks without grammatical symbols; the ' open' relies upon 'the one breath limitation' (intuitive cadence)& so inherently requires the 'reader' (reciter) to input and respond, thus making this enigmatic form a two-way interplay & interpretation unique to the moment
************
wordless
sanctum
portals
cleaving
anchored
in
invocations
shroud-bound
effulgence—
vellum
&alabaster
fluttering
guising flesh
in
a clean slate
fettered
by
silence
ghost-scripted
expunged
orisons
canvas
bloom
weathered sheen
of
tether-tint
a
nailing soul
interlaced
exhumed
unbegotten
ebbing voice
forgotten
in a
breach
of
canonical hours
as
seeds
sprouting—
sky etched
wave-washed
sentence
retribution
under
a dust-turn
of
ink
& oblivion
They came yesterday, early as dawn itself
They came with shovels and trowels
To give protection from the winter
To the rose bushes that you loved
Shortly after lunch I heard Oliver barking
It was his angry bark, his sound of offense
For the worker was digging and exhumed
Your scarf from the tangled roots of roses
I gave the scarf to Connie, I remember
She was little then, five or so
And she visited to ask for something of yours
To keep and remember
When she went home and her mother asked
What she had done at our house
She said, “I just sat on his lap
And helped him cry.”
It comes to me now, later she asked
About the scarf again and I assumed she lost it
But now there was the evidence
Oliver also had a need to remember
And put his souvenir of you
Beneath the bushes you so loved
And the workman held the scarf to me
And I told him, “Put it back.”
He comes to me at night
It is his ritual of companionship
Sad-eyed and with mournful whimpering
He comes to my arms and licks my hand
And we are together before the fireplace
Watching shadows dance across the walls
Each remembering the moments that were ours
Each guarding a part of you in the roots of us
Little Black Box
Where You lie Sleeping
Little Black Box
Your Secrets Keeping
You'll Never Talk
In That Little Black Box
UnMarked Grave
Where You Are Wasting
UnMarked Grave
In Soil Basting
Just another Knave
In An Unmarked Grave
Everybody there is wearing black
No one standing there wants you back
people walk away you hear them talk
As someone throws dirt upon the box
Dirty little womb
Buried under the stone
Dirty little womb
Lying there alone
never be exhumed
From a dirty little womb