Inheritance
All things die so death may bring
New life to blossom in the Spring,
But here we stand, the final crop,
We’ve sqeezed from Earth the final drop
Of moisture, left her barren-dry,
Now bloated bodies putrify
And children starve to satisfy
Our appetites, still unrelieved
Though from our parents we received
The past, from which to take our due
But us, we stole the future too!
Debts
The last thing he said, he lay almost dead
On his bed, his eyes distant and dewy,
He said “Son if you find, I’ve left something behind
Be so kind as to send it on to me.”
His spirit at rest, his corpse in a chest
And addressed, ‘Care of Hell’ to his ghost.
I then hauled it off straight to the cemetery gate
And, though late, I still caught the last post.
British Pathé
See the soldier in the news-reel shot,
His real-life death-throes light has caught and held,
Fixed in frames, locked in celluloid,
A shadow of his former self, condemned
To death everlasting. Let's watch again while he
Performs his life-defying act.
Epitaph
A lethargic spirit he lay,
Idly putting off Life for a day,
Till his days all ran out,
Now he's lying about,
Six foot down and still wasting away.
How They Brought The News From Ghent
I sprang to the stirrup and Joris and he,
There wasn't much room on the horse for all three,
"Good God!" cried the watchman we passed on the track,
"God!" echoed Dirck as he fell of the back
So we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Though neither one knew where we galloped or why,
You see it transpired by some tragic mishap,
Only Dirck new the news, only Dirck had a map!
Self-Assessment
It's come to nothing afterall,
A little sedge trapped in the drain,
But nothing else. And not much either,
To look forward to put pain,
A rumour yet; imagination teaching fear which rungs to climb.
Shudder and shake him off.
What then? I can't complain that time
Has just run out on me - not run,
It oozed an hour, dripped a day.
Caught in a catatonic trance,
I've watched my life just seep away.