I saw the postured seating - face forward - chin up - But an empty plate for eating. Flies thrummed buzzing wings - hollowed out - dripping down - Feasting on the heartstrings. Your corpse used as a flower vase - water held - death dwelled - Adorned in maggot petal grace.
Known not as seed but seedling Etched in photographic memories That sear white hot in absent flesh. The body, too barren to hold onto What little life it longed to give love, Still scarred grievously in self-loathing. Small roots, that wished themselves To dig happiness from within fear, Found the ground soil to be lacking. But the sunlight would soon set, Bringing unfathomable darkness And cold typhoons of destruction. To compensate for the deficiency, The sapling clung to a cracking pot That recklessly scratched at itself. Soon the chippings stacked higher Than the edges had ever reached And the contents were strewn away. Wretched sorrow bled for hours Until the mud was thick as paste, Coating the future in a tacky glaze Of tormented jealousy and longing. No fruits or labors could bare bark Thick enough to be unfeeling. Other trees grew in orchards of poison, Their branches reaching outward, Upward to the glistening sun. How spiritless must this grove be To have only produced heartache In place of a vibrant linden tree.
Written to a picture prompt from the former Facebook group: Stardust Poetry
The exclusive rights to grief were taken: Shouted from lips that could never be kind, Painted on a face that had never seen, Twisted in the belief of false guiltlessness, And pointed at the remaining husk of me. The cold iron gates stood heavy in judgement, Separated the self-righteous from the sinner. The one heart that beat love to both sides, A heart once so swollen and overflown That it willed there to be a second pulse, Had burst its banks and bled out silently. Emptiness is the disease that devours joy, Turning time into a weapon of contagion Until we're all wasted and spent in heaps Of decaying flesh and worthless broken bones. A death lived and re-lived in cyclical attack, Feeding on the casualties that too have fallen Into the welcoming arms of temptations Union. When those gates sighed their disapproval How sweet was that call to be swallowed whole By the ravishing teeth of an irreversible vice And no longer be blamed by that judgement.
The Poet Armistead 