Underwritten

 

A grave is a book

no one has read,

the author anonymous,

its language dead.

You might say a grave is a story

a ghost has written.

 

Foundation

 

A grave is an empty room,

an orphanage torn down,

the ruins of a nursery.

It's the foundation of a factory

whose industry is bankrupt.

 

City of the Dead

 

A grave is a fallen tower,

a palace overcome,

a diaspora of harried citizenry.

From its walls you once could see

a sunrise on another planet.

It was like an amber egg

being quietly broken open.

 

Snow Angels

 

I rather believe

a grave is a monastery

abandoned by God and Time.

A few drunken angels remain,

the last prayer possible reverberating

off its earthen walls.

A headstone is a stone amen.

 

Storehouse

 

She said, wearily,

a grave is a hole in a life.

It's death's house

and quiet interlude between                                        

two universes colliding.

It's where we keep the spare eternities

no longer necessary to our cause.

 

Dead in the Water

 

A grave is the colour of beetles

or what a serpent is thinking.

It's dusk under thirty feet of water.

A black candle melted down.

A nail in the devil's flooring.

A grave is a rainbow's skeleton.

A ladder up and down a soul.

A pocketful of needles,

a grave is a baby singularity.

It's where an armada of shadows

crosses an infinite sea.