Lyn Ferlo
Who's going to lay the Funeral Man down
when the time comes
when the bodies have been cleaned
and gleaned
from underneath the wreckage
when every shred of flesh
has been gathered
picked clean from the metal bones,
when the ashes have been sifted
and the carbon tagged and dated.
In great stone houses of the dead
they labor
hands as white as marble
satin faces perfumed
with the scent of flowers
and always with an air of confidence.
Minions of Moros immune to His touch
have made of death a pretty thing
which touches only innocents they tell you.
We are too strong, too powerful
to feel the sting of peasants,
these arms we bear too complicated
for a simple mind to comprehend
and so, like children eager to be grown,
the peasants play with toys they have been given
and willfully, like spoiled children,
throw them to the ground
shattering the muted murmurings
in halls of thick pile carpets.
The Funeral Men gather
their sibilant sounds of solicitous reassurance
turn to outraged hisses of horror
and though they labor long and hard
to prettify the carnage
the task will far outstrip
their meager means.
And when at the last
they raise their heads
to look around
who is it then
lays the Funeral man down?
Copyright (c) 2004 by Lyn Ferlo