I was browsing my poems looking for something that I probably forgot to post when I discovered this. For a split moment, I wondered who wrote this, then remembered it was me. I share this forgotten poem I wrote because I’m hoping it will clean your windows and straighten your glasses.
Nobody guards the living dead.
That wander around among us.
We can no longer smell their decay
Or witness their festering pus
The stories you’re told protect you
Against the sacred forever sleep.
Work harder than you need to
Pray your soul for them to keep
I hate mourning the living dead
That can’t remember the words
To the songs that living humans sing
To the tunes of the cawing birds
The crackling fear that reaps us clean
Of dastardly deeds and acts unseen
Retrieves us back from comfort one
At rising dawn or setting sun
I hate that the fear leaves things unsaid
That fear that the coffin will spring open
like a jack-in-the-box’s bouncing head
scaring the life out of your heart
as it sucks you up in one whole part.
Yes.
Nobody guards the living dead.
Mare Martell 