Mundane Matters of Mortals
Alas
how they suffer
poverty seeds disease
like a puddle breeds mosquitoes -
the sickly buzz is everywhere..
the dirge of the drudge
nowadays damn near everyone in refrain
rites and rituals --
enough to almost make this heartless
hooded old man feel faint - ha!
..a feign of concern with my bony hand to my stony brow..
mundane mortals
mundane matters on their minds -
can’t afford to spend their meager dreams
on expensive imagination!
humdrum hands beat doldrums drum
but the Shaman’s drum talks a good trance
his slippery soul is virtual elsewhere
while a dead march queues in sad pews
requiems’ of sainted airs rise in tainted air
doleful tones
replace the sing-song sigh
the music of the wind dies
another procession progresses
through realms funeral-colored
when final debts comes due
human hues turn black -
widows lost in sable weeds amidst white lily stars -
weepy stems to meet my scythe when their harvest comes
a planetary pandemic
life as bitter as a carafe of day-old café noir
gone are monotonous morns and norms
when humanity afforded sugar cubes for the dirty drink -
D e a t h;
the darkness of my name
the biological warfare I wage
my savage -yet imaginative- primitive persona..
balls of spike proteins I wield like a medieval mace
the penniless pay for their rich mantra;
live to die and die to undyingly l - i - v - e
and ooh..
the cruel pain the plagued poor endure
before they reach their precious “forevermore”
church bells swing and death knells ring
a steeple’s hollow heart quiet
when pregnant with empty space
now sings fruitful with south side sorrows
English style circle bell
brings muffled mourning full-circle
knolls tell the story of the coffined;
warm womb to cold casket
the departed as distant as the last toll’s fade..
the years rung - wrung out so slowly
empty-hourglass hours man-handled…
a forced meditation but not a mediation on mortality
a haunting for those with breath still to sob
as my pale horse hauls the wagon
with today’s grim crop -
I dare say the business of reaping souls is booming!
“Death!” oh how you shudder to utter my name
once I was like the distant cousin who rarely visited
today I am the in-law loathed
who’s barged back in -
and primped in my never-before-seen covid robes
I am anything but
mundane
Susan Ashley
March 13, 2021
*mace: a heavy medieval war club with a spiked or flanged metal head, used to crush armor
Copyright © Susan Ashley | Year Posted 2021
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