The Departing of The Heart
Salutations for the sound of mind and poverty of heart
Reparations that don’t come through in time to rectify the start
Commiserations for the ones who find it hardest to eventually part
Palpitations of another heart that cannot perceive the concept that it must depart
Military consequences that send the young men out to war
Conciliatory influences of the leaders who target hiring of the poor
Crematory inferences necessary as they knock on heavens door
An Adversary without recompense that helps me get up off the floor
Kindness for the people that are on daily parade
Blindness from the steeple as we play Holy charades
They Find less sympathy for the feeble as they huddle close and afraid
Passing through the eye of a needle as the ferryman gets paid
Interjections from the galley as the defendant begins to cry
Objections in a midnight alley as the amendment causes him to deny
Rejections of the black sheep in a family as without her flock she’ll surely die
Comprehensions of the urgency that communicate in sighs
The End by Elizabeth Moroz
To be a poet, a sagacious sage
Who spills his blood across the page
That tells his tales in black and white
Where wrong is wrong and never right
He knows each breath could be his last
How quick today becomes the past
Love doesn't always conquer hate
And choices made, determine fate
A visionary who can see
Whatever there will be, will be
That Father Time will never wait
The Angel of Death is never late
He thinks that love is like a rose
That where one dies another grows.
Unlike the rose that grew before
With sharper thorns that prick the more
We laugh, we cry, we live, we die
We say goodbye with one last sigh
And all we do and all we learn
Adds not one ash to the crematory urn.
Daniel Turner
One day, my hair will turn gray,
And my skin will sag,
My legs will shiver when I walk;
And for the last time, I'll look back
To the memories we made.
The way we shared our lives,
The way we laughed & cried
Through the waves of our lives;
Those smiles on my lips
When we used to text late at night.
Now it's the last day of my life,
I'm wondering where you are.
I'm still full of hope,
Hoping that your voice will come from behind
And stop me from dying once again,
Like the way you once bloomed my drying heart.
Love Honor and Respect
For Crowe's Mortuary and Crematory
By Franklin Price
02/08/2022
My wife was lifted up by God
While we held her by the hand,
With her, our daughter and myself,
As she left for promised land.
She passed away in early evening,
Was almost half past seven.
Crowe's came and took her body,
Though her soul had gone to heaven.
They lifted her with love and care,
As we cried to see her go.
I was glad that I had called them.
Their caring softened up the blow.
The house was feeling empty.
A loved one's loss has that effect.
It could have been a lot worse,
But for their honor and respect.
Theirs is not an easy task.
They only work when there's a shroud.
The way they made me feel that night
Had me thanking God out loud.
Her passing was three weeks ago.
I found an urn with hummingbird,
She always loved to watch them
They hovered 'round without a word.
I called Crowe's, and asked them,
If they could transfer all her ash.
They said that they would wait for me.
I should not hurt myself and dash.
When I got there, they were waiting
And with respect they did the deed
I very highly recommend them
If you ever are in need.
I've been working in the crematory,
All the livelong sob story,
Can’t you hear the gas jets breathing?
Play too close and you’ll get urned.
Plus we only queue up two-a-day,
So you could really mess us up,
too.
Till six o’clock when on the dot,
The valves are turned to plumb true,
The breathing stops,
Yabadabadoo.
It is the night, in deepest dark, that death foretells
the demon heart in which all lonely feeling dwells.
Yet, in plain sight, our eyes can’t see what life impels,
emotion’s plea, our deepest sorrow love dispels.
Blind are caustic ink filled visions, all light repels,
like charred decisions, ash from crematory tells
a tale where quietus intrepidity sells
the silent impetus toward a life of many hells.
Walled inside this ebon murk, my emotion wells;
beyond they lurk, those who are sane, their tale retells
how life is to live, and the end but brief farewells.
Though my will may bend, it is I that death compels.
02/16/2018
Behind the barbed wire
Behind the barbed wire a cherry tree blooms:
bustling petals in the land of death.
Behind the barbed wire a gradient runs
between the scent of flowers
and the omnipresent stench
of burning flesh
wafting from the crematory furnaces.
And I wonder:
if there are pillars of clouds by day
and pillars of fire by night
and loud cries
and pleading prayers,
then where is God ?
Where, behind the barbed wire?
Does he know about žthe walls of Treblinka
and Osvetim?
Does he know that Arbeit macht frei?
Does he know about the Final Solution and
forced labou
and the horror of the Holocaust Trains?
Is he, too, in the gas chambers
gasping for breath?
Is he, too, starving to death,
wishing nothing more
than something to eat?
Is he, too, behind the barbed wire ?
And I wonder:
despite the machinery of brutal killing
in staccatto of bullets,
could they not kill humanity
to the mass graves
could they not bury hope
Because cherry trees bloom
even behind a barbed wire.
cars pass by
the hospital
by the crematory
and emit exhaust fumes
and the chimneys
by the crematory
they emit smoke
emit the dead
from Dante's Inferno
and we breathe them
we breathe death
and sneeze a lot
The dust blends with
the humid specks.
Smoke twirls. Hangs for a
while, and then departs.
Something was burning far away.
Inside me also. To ashes.
I release the crematory.
It was over.
I will scatter the years,
spent with you. On a sand bar.
Where we stood when tide was
low. Now it is overwhelmed,
the bank. The seagulls don’t
leave ther engraved, gender signs.
Satish Verma
Two palm shape a bowl for wound.
My mouth is a big hole of cry
Ruminates in the dark the sorrow
My legs flint-stone-
The hammers of night sparked
The cry from my chest
The sleepers of the graveyard heard it.
This is the hell where heart melted.
I see the dark, cleaves the silence
From ear to ear, like an old warrior,
Grinding the memory, agitating sadness,
Striping a heart of its leaves
The shadow lays his head on the wall.
The ravens are cheerful.
On October the little squirrels come
to trade their love for hazelnuts.
Love warms up the lonely hearts.
Love is crematory of loneliness.
Love is the crematory of my heart.
Two palm shape a bowl for wound.
My heart's stitches itch,
Forgetfulness is the heart drug.
Tomorrow I shall be different.
I shall be good as new
Written by © Fatima Nusairat
Fickle Art and control Freaky
Don't play well together
Tolerance was not accepted
'Cause he wore pink shoes
Cross the street each day at the same intersection
Fickle Art and control freaky but the road was not
And never could be big enough for these to share
Time square and Big Ben don't speak the same lingo
Don't hold the same values to be sacred
Dust will blow and dust will go
Huff and puff, back to the dust
Medical examiner: What stopped his heart?
Lack of tidal volume, puffed too long
Collapsed a lung...Fire up the crematory
Is it dusty in here?
***Artist note: Ever get tired of the windbags can't let you live your life and them theirs? I sure do.
I'll leave you
My Bones,
Under all but two
Upturned stones,
I gambled with one bullet
And five empty chambers,
Spun the silver roulette
And click went the hammer,
The thoughts in my head
Melted with the hot lead,
It's all in the red
All that I could have said,
Resting in pieces
My theories, my plans, my thesis,
The unrest in my entrails
Is no longer, like the pins and nails
Behind my eyes
Pointed towards the skies,
At the last flashed my life
Like the sharpest knife,
Seared into my mind
Now all on the wall behind,
If I had chosen the crematory
I would have no story...
It seems old age has filtered in
without so much as fanfare--
rapacious, unforgiving, feeding
on my body everywhere
like those precocious maggots
standing by in ignorance,
their bit of consciousness
still unapprised of my arrangement
with the crematory down the road.
Ah, poor fellows, that you are,
I have no fear as I deny your table
in my final earthen home.
Something I like
of going out with fire...
Something to refine my years of lust,
my trust in paradise
laid down upon my breath,
and then dispatched in breathlessness
at every spasm of creative power
that I released for Adam's glory,
or carnality.
What then, do I bequeath to you?
Not fortune, clearly,
not subjective wisdom
that you must encounter on your own.
To you my hearthside chats with God
are something alien that you would
crumple and consign to flame.
My love? Of course there is no doubt.
No, I pass on to you
that which was given me
within my loins, and yours to be
within that strange eternity
that we address, and tremble
that it lowers upon us all,
beckons like a lorelei,
makes food of fantasy,
and of itself becomes
the towering acumen that we
breathe in the far estate of God.
~
X. insects that are impossible to see with the naked eye
crawl through what is left
IX. knocked by accident off the mantelpiece &
spread all over the shag
VIII. burnt in a crematory, stuffed in an urn & set on the mantelpiece
VII. people may come to see the remains staring up lifelessly from a casket
VI. found dead on the scene by semi-interested law enforcement official
V. sideswiped at stoplight: hit & run by a wasted teenager who just got their license
a week ago
IV. late by a few minutes, hop into vehicle, step on the gas, don’t drive too
fast, but not too slow either: must get to work on time
III. step into shower: shampoo, lather, rinse, apply moisturizer, scrub with
soap of choice, brush teeth, rinse out moisturizer, towel dry body, dry hair
with dryer (cold outside)
II. stuff food into mouth, wash it down with caffeinated beverage
I. woke up with bags under eyes, choppy sleep & no time to catch up on it
A BIT OF WISDOM
Why censure the pig for muddy pleasures?
Think you of the dark, cool soil so impure.
That a nip on your saintly white robe shrinks
Empty pyretic hall of blushing ego magnified.
Why shoo the insects from burning to their joys?
And label them fool to the crematory they crawl
When all the while a requiem for your soul
Stifles your astral song in Mammon’s hypnotic lair.
Clean first your eyes before venturing far
For a crooked line maybe a straight golden line
And for you to tarry come’s truth whipping rod
To clean it for you with by your own precious tears.
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