Speak no ill of the dead.
They wait in rapt attention
for every allusion, cadence,
and wordly illusion –
to avenge every slander.
They lay in Hardwood
puzzle boxes below the turf,
impregnable to the Earth,
ears pricking with each footfall,
suspecting every spoken word.
Watch the graveyard grass
for insults are not welcome
with the dead.
| Copyright © 2020 by Cory Adamson Cory Adamson has been published in Medusa’s Kitchen, A Day’s Encounter, Pyrokinection, and Lincoln University’s Arts and Letters journal. He resides in Jefferson City, Missouri. |
Cory, thank you for this perfect, and perfectly astounding, debut poem on Moristotle & Co. As I told you when I scheduled it for today, I would consider it a remembrance (in my own mind, certainly) for my mother, born on this day in 1908. Stella Gertrude Voss Dean was a person of whom, simply, there is no ill to be spoken, for none was ever possible, a more empathic, sympathetic person never having crossed my path than the woman who birthed me on it. She did, though, in life listen to what the neighbors might be whispering, and I know she suffered at what she thought she heard.
ReplyDeleteAwesome poem !
ReplyDeleteWow. Goose bumps. Everyday world, meet creepy. Mundane assumptions, meet a dire possible reality. Welcome, sir.
ReplyDeleteGreat poem with great images and word choices.
ReplyDelete