My quill scratches here in this cold, musty, dark room
with it my papyrus scroll. We are all of us entombed
Last night, echoes of coming fright, impending Doom
Once more, another step forward for all to hear BOOM
Humanity has always sought to cheat the Big One, Death
For it cares not to ease the heaving of our last gifted Breath
The thought leaves us much more than alone. Leaves us bereft
So we cheat with glee, we lie with ease, stare intently the Theft
Ask Alexander. He left us dozens of Alexandria's to be revered
His deism, a shield to hide behind while exploiting being feared
The Pharaohs in Apex flights of sarcophagi to the Stars they steered
They sought to dwell atop Sirius perched on the labour of all peers
Last night, whispers of Men aspiring to download us, themselves
Into a Matrix? Where towering Olympus is to now house bookshelves
For the entertainment of our Great Grandchildren in fantasy with Elves
We will be there to open, each a Pandora's Box whirling kisses of Farewell
Consequence
by Michael R. Burch
They are fresh-faced,
not innocent, but perhaps not yet jaded,
oblivious to time and death,
of each counted breath
in the pendulum’s sway
falling unheeded.
They are bright, undissuaded
by foreign tongues,
by sepulchers empty and waiting,
by sarcophagi of ancient kings,
by proclamations,
by rituals of scalpels and rings.
They are sworn, they are fated
to misadventure and grief;
but they revel in life
till the sun falls, receding
into silent halls
to torrents of inconsequential tears . . .
. . . to brief tragedies of tears
when they consider this: No one else sees.
But I know.
We all know.
We all know the consequence
of being so young.
Keywords/Tags: youth, youths, youth day, innocence, innocent, time, life and death, young, childhood, child, children
A frigid surface blanketed by snow,
headstones shimmer in the light,
glistening marble and granite are
icy shadows sporting lost names.
Herein lay stories of the past,
heroes, beggars, rich and poor alike,
as the ground knows no difference
between them, it makes for a quiet rest.
Wrapped roots entwine around casket chambers;
sarcophagi nestled near earth’s center.
Life’s roads end meets Gaia’s womb once again;
etheric stories no longer read aloud.
Though alas, listen to the silence!
Listen long enough and you can hear those stories,
whispered among the slumbering dreamers,
for nothing ever really dies; it simply changes.
I walk here to learn as, all life speaks.
In the air, the very essence of the earth
and the trees; echoes from the ground reverberate
within the winter winds; the silence has much to say.
Have we, in our wanderings through
storied lands, tramped upon
purple earth cradling the sleep of kings?
Perhaps, far beneath our ambling feet,
in crypts sealed by the amnesia of centuries,
in sarcophagi dusted with a memory of pomp,
there have been tyrants who lay with nightmares,
though long freed from the reign of maggots?
Have we stood, unknowing, above
the dried husk of a despot,
his memory scattered, yet
his hand still sticky with the blood of a thousand foes
and the quavering kisses of knights and cardinals?
Have our voices disturbed the secret repose
of a czar or caesar who was not sufficiently brutal
to slaughter hope or outlaw love?
Maybe our footsteps, soft as they were,
have echoed the roaring hooves of an army
sent to war not for rubies or territories,
but a woman’s heart?
And when you and I passed through,
on our wanderings across these storied, hoary lands,
we were two unchronicled drifters,
accidentally crowned by a wakeful moon above,
and, below, so much kingly slumber.
that has been, was so raven
that you were hugging vanity
for the deportation of death
as a living;
fake predicates of a genius
like words falling as bucketfuls
of lies,
back to back coffer dams
collapsing, submerging
seers’ sarcophagi,
and the annual rings were becoming
deeper, mossed in misery,
his book of moon blackened,
goodbye, the dark unsinkable,
I am going to be reborn
in the abyss of my own sorrow
SATISH VERMA
A pyramid tour
On my bucket list
Approach by camels
Cross an oasis
Play mahjong with sheiks
In hot desert tents
Where harem girls dance
Through wafting incense
Explore monuments
With ancient secrets
Engraved sarcophagi
Sanskrit alphabet
The airfare alone
Would make some withdraw
Camel rental's high
The pricetag's the flaw
To cross the ocean
For vacation viva
Need huge chunk of change
From Uncle Visa
* For Linda-Marie's Viva Vacation challenge
Songs take voice in rampant whisper
'Pon the skyways of the Night,
Where truant Sun's no longer sway
O'er Moon's solitary reign...
As once again I durst there go,
To that lone moss-mantled Keep,
To unfathomed caves, my heart's retreat,
Enlamped but by sad yearning's glow.
There angels' psalms on black winds sound
Their dirge to Dream's descent
To flowered tombs- sarcophagi,
Where, loth to die, dim embers plead.