Season of death
Told to fear
Before bitter cold
Making everyone scream
For some warmth
And loving touch
Stay in touch
After the death
With some warmth
And no fear
Morbid many scream
Awaiting the cold
Decide embrace cold
With forceful touch
Hear the scream
Proclaiming the death
Eyes express fear
Needing some warmth
Getting the warmth
Fighting the cold
And the fear
With caring touch
Defeating ugly death
That creates a scream
Why a scream?
All filled warmth
Body shell death
Purple silver cold
Ghosts need touch
Soothe the Fear
Dispense the fear
Memories laughing scream
Everyone seems touch
Words igniting warmth
Melting the cold
Celebrating the death
Conquering fear death
Instead scream warmth
When touch cold
360.
My Fear of Burial
I fear physical death because I may just go…
To the fertile soil of light and heat
Where my organs and flesh the worms will eat
Like organic fertilizer be consumed from juice to meat!
To the barren ground of rock and dust
Where my blood and bones diminish onto the earth's crust
Like an old iron gradually degrading into useless rust!
-03/16/2015
(Dumarao)
*My Fear of Death Collection
The notion engulfs my conscience.
It raises a question, I fail to answer.
They say, the body remains,
Whilst the soul departs.
A claim backed by none.
How do I know it's not trapped?
The emotions I endure today,
Magnified and unbearable.
The scorching sun,
A glass of lava poured over my body.
How do I lie on a pyre,
With hundreds of woods burning beneath?
Once contemplated burial.
Yet how I ignore,
The revulsion of crawling maggots.
Feeding on my brain.
Fading consciousness heralds the stench,
Declaring the emergence of decay.
The eternal peace is agonising,
Quivers, petrifies and shatters rationalization.
Though I'm acquainted with it.
I saw it, I knew it,
Nevertheless I attempted to evade it.
Why do I deny surrender then?
It is a race,
And death, the destined victor.
Age is the vessel I am aboard,
sailing forward, yet no reversal.
Not a glimpse of the past I discovered,
What is left of me that I'm afraid to die?
For Patrice Lumumba
25-06-2025
When you gave back just a tooth
You didn’t even feel ashamed
At all though you knew the truth
You were never deeply blamed
For what you did to Patrice
Lumumba whom you tortured
Then chopped and chopped to pieces
Like an onion you nurtured
Your ego and turned our land
Into a profit death camp
Which fulfilled what you had planned
You took and took to revamp
Belgium thus exploited
All our raw material
Thinking you were anointed
By God to act imperial
No one was prosecuted
For what you put us through
Your deeds can’t be disputed
Even your own crew knows it’s true
When rubber quotas wasn’t met
You cut off my limbs with an axe
To make an example of me on set
Were you proud with all those stacks
And stacks of hands you displayed
Like medals on parade after a race
Were you aware of the game you played
Which was gory yet turned our face
Sad when blood gushed like water from
A hydrant still no remorse
While you just stood there numb
To the course you had to endorse
Hot summers dry up the land
The dirt crumbles under the heaviness of disrespect
Fresh flowers adorn the land
Covering the uneven burial grounds
Overshadowed by privilege
What better way to claim superiority
By soiling the plantation they stand on
Ignorance crowds the air
Cast aside by vows of love
Tainting history with a wedding
The stories of black labour whitewashed into a picture of a bride in white
Covering the truths in a veil of fragility
Ironic how they use the innocence of a white wedding
To ink over history
A picture is worth a thousand words
A simple picture of a now conjoined family
Haunted by secrets of ownership
How the brides grandmother was once a girl
Who stood on this same plantation
Watching her parents become slave owners
A simple picture
Once innocent becomes a sinister backstory
A history haunted by the darkness of whiteness
Flower petals spread across the venue of black bones
Not to pay respect to those buried
But to honour love consummated on the grounds of black history
Smiling in pictures with a tainted memory
Plastered in magazines profiting off of slavery
But hey at least they gained popularity
The greed of the white man knows no bound
It transcends life, it transcends death
Their eyes gleam with profit
Their mouths salivate at another black death
Prices heightened on a casket
Won't be too long till another black body fills it
Money earned from this purchase
Used to pay their rent
If there is anything left they'll use it to pay for their children's education
They don't see us as human
But they do see us as a money making scheme
They target us and then
Up the prices of our funerals
Their own system to monetize our deaths
Acting is their forte
When they look in our eyes and lie to our faces
Sending condolences our way
But inside brimming with happiness
Not an ounce of sympathy
Not a fibre of empathy
Just pre dug graves and unnecessary funeral bills
To them we are products ready to be exchanged
His days he spent pleasantly
as befit his soft upbringing
running the family business
counting the money pouring in
leaving the real work to his brother
One day their father passed –
deciding to attend the burial
he was startled to see a rabbi presiding
father was not Jewish, was he
Does that mean, he wondered –
could it be that I’m Jewish
But he dismissed the preposterous thought
buried it deep in his conscience
The cold, so cold ground
Binding and pulling
And holding me down
Embraced by the crypt
Confined and restrained
And life’s breath stripped
Stygian inked
Such stifling dark
And soul’s light extinct
I find myself here
Trussed by death’s grave
Without hope, just fear
In the cold, cold ground
Decayed and corrupt
Neath my burial mound
A flag draped box on titanium stand
Bears all that remains of a noble man
A father’s pride, a mother’s grief
A widow’s tears without relief
A son whose memories begin to fade
As the soldier is solemnly laid
The torment a brief eternity
Brought by war infernally
Driven by other men’s desires
We raise yet more funeral pyres
And watch again our young men go
Though some may not return we know
How long shall we pay this bloody toll
With tokens made from our own soul
That day on Earth was filled with fun,
The weather was mild and clement.
The sun beamed down with gentle grace,
Cool air had just chased off the rain.
That party brimmed with food and beer,
We drank more than we ought to drink.
There wasn’t a single sober soul,
Not even the one meant to drive.
Still, we had homes we had to reach—
He drove, though steeped in alcohol.
Then came the crash, brutal and swift—
Not even one of us survived.
The burial came sudden and prompt,
Tears streamed as grief rent through the air.
"Too young to die!" the mourners wailed,
Bodies laid stiff, devoid of soul.
Four graves gaped wide to swallow whole—
The dug-out clay their final roofs.
Left for the ants to feast upon,
Till silence hushed all mortal wails.
Then angels came before Satan,
Carefully choosing whom to claim:
Some to hellfire, some to heaven—
That's how we stopped living with men.
Contest title: By accident
Contest Judged: June 23rd, 2025 2:48:00 PM
Sponsored by: Kai Michael Neumann
Placement: First
It was a somber cloudy day, sadness weighed heavy on us all. The family gathered to pay final respects. Gregorian chant filled the air as we looked up to heaven. We were burying a good man. He had been a role model, a loving husband and a caring father.
the finality
painfully sinking in
goodbyes surreal
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Submitted on May 26, 2025 for CEMETERY contest sponsored by CONSTANCE LA FRANCE - RANKED 2ND
b u r y me
amongst
corpse flowers b
a
p
t
i
s
e
d
under ~
soporific rain
No one told me the moment you parted.
My disheartened heart left the room the moment I turned the corner,
and saw his golden badge as he nodded in comforting dismay.
That day
My heart learned the rhythm of grief
Slow
Sickly
The kind that brings you past your knees,
and drives you six feet underground.
Who needs two burials in one day?
No burial
When I died, my family didn’t dare bury me in a grave.
They knew, without a doubt, I'd only misbehave ~
that I'd party with the germs,
and have sleepovers with the worms,
and give the bacteria all that they crave.
So, just a lousy cremation
When I watched them cremate my body,
I thought their work was just a little bit shoddy.
I woulda preferred
if the fire had been hotter by a third,
and if my friends had been invited over
to toast me with a hot toddy.
Many years ago, I saw the arrival of several ships
They came with a smile and goods laced with their curse
In a short time, they gave multiple populations the clips
The curse ran longer than the promised verse
I have been in the ground with my people before they became a nation
I have seen them born, grown, and dead.
The air around them at their last moment was my gift for their parting vacation.
They will have their time to sleep in their afterlife bed.
This time, the air that escaped from their lungs of death came back
The sins of the murderers are now coming back on the people who have carried this practice
To all of the people who have fought the fight, I will give you slack
For all of you fighters, I have decided to take you into a caring private practice
I will spread to each one of you for your practice of false pride
Oh my, it will be a long ride
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