Sepulchers Poems

As Night Descends

As night descends, the heavens celebrate,
The birth of stars
Through the tossing trees,
They send down their toothless smiles
The Moon too smiles with glee,
Like a pleased mother.

The Earth in darkness,
Looking at the illumined sky,
Follows suit and lights up

Street lamps open their eyes,
Flooding the cobalt streets.
Neon bulbs blink from hidden homes
Car lights dazzle like lightning
Glow worms, like night sentries,
Parade round with mini torches

The roads ring with the sound of returning feet
Fairies roam round for their nightly gambols 
Day laborers coil lazily to rest
Letting their barbed distractions melt slowly away
The dead in their sepulchers sleep peaceful!

Among the muted murmurs,
The cicadas’ sounds alone swell.

This is the time for life and strife
To lay their heads pillowed for serene sleep
Under the blanket of a dim lit night!

Nov.15. 2022

~ Placed First~       

Beauty of Night Poetry Contest
Sponsor- Sotto Poet

Forest of Dreams

I hear the echoes of yesterday's callings 
like a soft longing from a long ago ghost 
The emerald forest of my youth re-appears
at the sight of a midnight cadence;
Mystical night dreams reiterate  
like an incantation from long ago, 
Forgotten Sepulchers... 
Tunnels of earth wind and fire burn my desire 
once again, as I perch onto the matrix of solid bark 
the silence is almost deafening'   
I hear the fairies call with their gentry of good will, 
"we guiders of soul have come to take you home" 
and as I walk through their fragrant gate, 
 
I know from my heart of hearts, that I belong here  
              In their forest of dreams .

Fig Leaf

An alluring art of vivacious symbols and meanings,
Fig leaf has many religious political leanings;  
Though apple was the fruit Adam and Eve had once eaten,
It's fig leaf that had hidden them when they felt browbeaten...!

Wrapping our physic we do; though not in pageant parades, 
Psychic volcanoes we cover up with gold-gleaming shades; 
Odors of festering wounds are hidden by fragrant scent,
Do all these, yet, grand to our hearts, aptly needed vent...?

Do all polished stones turn precious diamond or sapphire?
Do toy-guns in battles, like cannons and tanks blow fire?
When make-up peels off, physic would its true complexion show,
Though buried within darkest shadows, sun will, surely, glow...! 

Hypocrisy was what Jesus hated most in humans,
In light of truth, he said, darkness of hearts should illumine;
Washing should be both within and without of the vessels,
Whitewashing the sepulchers? Values need true retrievals!

Shielding sins have been constituent of human nature,
In doing so, we turn hilarious caricature; 
Growing out of inner deficiencies, is a must,
Fig leaves might fade off; Fig trees must grow, in strength so robust...!



29 March 2022

Cemetery

sleek sepulchers smile
deceptive dirges die down ---
souls sing solo songs


12 March 2022

When Night Descends

When night descends,
The heavens celebrate,
The birth of stars
Through the tossing trees,
They send down their toothless smiles
The Moon too smiles with glee,
Like a pleased mother.

The Earth in darkness,
Looking at the illumined sky,
Follows suit and lights up

Street lamps open their eyes,
Flooding the cobalt streets.
Neon bulbs blink,
From hidden homes

Car lights dazzle,
Like lightning
Glow worms, like night sentries,
Parade round with mini torches

The roads ring with the sound
Of returning feet
Night prowlers come out
To prey upon innocents
Fairies roam round
For their nightly gambols 

Day laborers
Coil lazily to rest
Letting their barbed distractions
Melt slowly away
The dead in their sepulchers
Sleep dreamless!

Among the muted murmurs,
The cicadas’ sounds alone swell.

This is the time for
Life and strife
To lay their heads pillowed
For restful silence
And serene sleep
Under the blanket 
Of a dim lit night! 

Placed First
A Brian Strand Libre Verse Poetry Contest

All Hallows' Eve

It is the only time we get to laugh at black
So de rigeur at funerals and stogy old photography.
Take Dixie Land at home in New Orleans
Parading back of happy brass from marble sculpted sepulchers.

A  mansion in mirage, a wavy misty rambling of rooms.
Their mirrors: windows to another, conjured world.
An agitated specter's greasy lipstick pleads.
How silly in its backward gibberish.

Flies frozen in some floes of ice cube trays
Or eyeballs docked adrift along a punch bowl rim.
In morgues, contracting muscles practice sitting up.
Fingers twitch impatient to be dressed in Sunday's best.

Around grave yards are cemetery stones
Jauntily askew, a sporty take on plumb
Due to a lack of rebar steel or poured cement.
More foundational than wood and bone alone.

Masks flash from unknown alley ways.
Our innards struggle up inside our throats
Suffocated quiet, still, we ache to catch so thin
A claustrophobic breath to be made so easily afraid.

Consequence

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

The Mystery Be

The Mystery Be

Mistral freedom o'er stakes waged before,
destined mortal souls their reposed earth,
spent sepulchers clips tales from postwar,
nonetheless, facts become one back door,
proves everywhere their tribute got worth,
bestill main doors naught their mailboxes,
the rumors naught onshore, farther berth,
winds from war, peace checks, paradoxes.

*Rhyme Scheme abaabcbc

2020 October 02

*Honorable Mention*
COMPLETELY YOUR CHOICE (31)any form any theme
~~Brian Strand

*5th Place*
IN PRAISE OF THE ODE
~~nette onclaud
#5

A Night of Fathomless Blackness

These vultures were closing in on me,
A thousand unutterable fears bore unamendable holes in my mind,
Absorbed in a stream of thoughts and reminiscences,
All was a vague jumble of chaotic impressions.

Awaiting my summons to the eternal silence,
Buried hopes couldn't rise from their sepulchers,
Fathomless depths of suffering increased
Like a feverish and godforsaken tide of life.

Gathering all my scattered impulses into a passionate act of courage,
Threw a ton's weight of resolve upon my muscles,
And braced myself to the exquisite burden of life,
I failed to drink from the jug of the universe.

My heart flutter with a vague terror,
And my soul is beaten to the ground by the catastrophe,
My sensibilities are now offended,
Because this is my night of fathomless blackness.

Sometimes the Dead

Sometimes the Dead
by Michael R. Burch 

Sometimes we catch them out of the corners of our eyes—
the pale dead.
After they have fled
the gourds of their bodies, like escaping fragrances they rise.
 
Once they have become a cloud’s mist, sometimes like the rain
they descend;
they appear, sometimes silver like laughter,
to gladden the hearts of men.
 
Sometimes like a pale gray fog, they drift
unencumbered, yet lumbrously,
as if over the sea
there was the lightest vapor even Atlas could not lift.
 
Sometimes they haunt our dreams like forgotten melodies
only half-remembered.
Though they lie dismembered
in black catacombs, sepulchers and dismal graves; though they have committed felonies,
 
yet they are us. Someday soon we will meet them in the graveyard dust
blood-engorged, but never sated
since Cain slew Abel.
Until we become them, O, let us steadfastly forget them, even as we know our children must.

Dying To Live

An anxiety hung like a dark impenetrable cloud,
As if I was left in an unknown world, wild as primeval chaos.

Time froze in my eyes,
My skinny, fragile hands grew cold like stone,
I exhaled what was left of my sanity,
Just as the fair cedar, fallen before the breeze.

Memories of erstwhile sepulchers,
Decayed corpse, maggots, caskets   
No longer frighten and daunt me
Against the task and responsibilities ahead.

The days of intimidation, penury, and starvation,
Hours of disappointments, dilemma and depression,
Moments of tears and pains all
Lies visible on my wrinkling skin.

Alas, I remembered I was dying to live
Instead of living to die.

The African Girl Child

As I guess into her brown dilated eyes,
Pains radiated and gushed out of her depressed soul.
Discrimination had dwarfed her ambitions like acid rain from the skies,
River of tears escaped my eyes; her right was sold.

Her voice, with a tentative question in it, rested in air and was silent,
Her land is flowing with milk and honey, yet she is starving to death,
She perceived the iron hand within the velvet glove, not decent,
I smiled and she sighed deeply, education is in dearth.

Gathering all her scattered impulses into a passionate act of courage,
Dignity and sweet patience were in her look.
She knows that her skin holds on black anchorage,
Buried hopes rose from their sepulchers and was penned in a book.

Now and forever, girls' rights must be protected,
She is our sister, daughter and future mother and shouldn't be intimidated.

This sonnet is dedicated to the African girl child.

Grim Measures For Similar States

grim measures for similar states
successful, expressed for reliable mobs
of absolutism, a gallery for Maghreb’s
intellectuals with frail aims
infringing mourning words, words of familiarity saved
for mobile polities, throbs
life, mummified and buried bodies and robes
of rebels recalling shades
edging, forming better incestuous ties and ordeals
lying bare, conjoined with flashy movements
of isolation, optional signs
distorted senses, resolving identities
of sepulchers, not salvaged forever, endorsements
of decadence agitated condign

What Lies Beneath

Who am I really?
Lover , sinner , saint?
The outward faces that we show,
are only coats of paint.
Everyone goes about  the expected way,
and plays their little games,
never realizing , that they all spread the pain.
The ones we thought that loved us best,
tell the most vicious lies.
And all the time they hide behind
a mask of perfect smiles.
A world full of glossies , and whitened bright veneers
passing by those they deem less worthy,
and causing them to fear.
Left with wondering what we did,
to make them feel such disdain?
People we once trusted,
now just  turn the other way.
False friends , and broken vessels,
is all there is to say.
Whited sepulchers on the outside,
inside death and decay.

Fourth of July

Forget not those who sacrificed that we might enjoy this special day.

Our cherished freedoms we owe to them who in hallowed sepulchers lay.

Undulating o'er this blessed nation the Grand Old Flag does yet wave.

Resolute Founding Fathers and ordinary men so very true and brave,

Took extraordinary actions to liberate us from tyranny and oppression.

Hereafter, may each generation be free to celebrate without suppression.

Over all the nation this day folks will celebrate with picnic and parade;

Fireworks will thrill and boring speeches by politicians will be made.

Jubilation should ring from towns large and small from shore to shore,

Until the sound of liberty resonates about the globe with a resounding roar!

Let true patriotism reign not only on this day but all others that ensue!

Yeehaa! Yippee! Yahoo! Yea! Happy Fourth of July to every one of you!

Entry for Kim Merryman's "Celebrate Independence" Contest (28 June 2015)

• Short Sepulchers Poems
• Famous Sepulchers Poems
• Best Sepulchers Poems
• Read Sepulchers Poems
• Long Sepulchers Poems
• Sepulchers Quotes