Pretty Dead Things

You can find a downloadable version of this poem here: (.PDF)

White husks rotting,

Shrouded in putrid stench, palatable only to the grisly red,

Carcasses of the once alive, stacked Jenga towers,

Ghastly in their human expressions of hideous fear and strained lines of hate.

The gaping grey eyes not yet plucked reflected the blinding headlights,

Faces weathered by occupation, war, victory,

Men drained of all fight,

Lifeless disfigurements ditched in a trench of the war’s end promise,

Purged from the records, nigh forgotten through denial,

And ignorance.

The earth so warm, covered the ivory skinned remains, little by little,

Until the dirt hid it all, until there was nothing but the trees of the forest,

Engineers, lawyers, professors, landowners, writers, prisoners of war,

When above, the clouds of black and grey cleared, a blue sky bathed in sunset hues.