The Slate Dawn

The Slate Dawn

1. The Burial of the Dead

We thought April was the cruelest month, bleeding

Corpses piled during the dead of night, mixing 

Tragedy and desire, stirring 

dull roots of Potter's Field 

With spring rain and pain.

Winter kept us snowblinded

To what we believed a foreign germ.

Cowering now in enforced solitude, 

Splendid isolation is anything but;

 Just a little lonely life deprived of Ubers'

rides through desolate streets.

Then summer surprised us when 

falling numbers began rising.

"Ask not by whom the death tolls swell."

Memorial day now has new graves to

Grieve us, new demons to seize us and rail about.

Let out at last into the sunlight

We can drink coffee on the sidewalks,

Bicycle down Linden Strasse,

Send the children to Summer camp.

My cousin's still confined to her bed

Where she lies alone and frightened. 

 Her Face Time face down in a lonely room

Unassuaged by well wishers' panning on Zoom.

The wealthy flee to the mountains now devoid of trees,

I read much of the night, holed up 'til winter's freeze.

What possible roots can clutch, what branches grow

Out of this Corona rubbish? Son of man,

You cannot say, or guess, for you know only

A stream of Netflix images, not where the sun beats.

And the dead, they give no succor, the Vicodin no relief, 

And the tombstone no sound of slaughter. Only

A shadow enshrouding dead flowers

Left by the righteous under the shadow of this bedrock

For the dead flock in droves to show you nothing's different.

Your shadow at mourning strides beside you

While death's shadow is evening stochastic lies you thought true;

Either will show you fear soon becoming dust,

yourself.

You gave me Hyacinth in a Bucket

It was a sweet Bouquet,

But when we went out to lay it on our friend's decay

The streets were full, and our progress met

With armed resistance and stinging spray;

Weak, my eyes filled with Pepper; I was neither

Living nor dead, and I knew nothing.

Looking into the heartless light, of fires

Scorching everything in sight, now turned

Desolate and empty as the endless sea.

Oda Mae Brown, famous clairvoyante

Caught the virus nevertheless.

To enable her well-known congress with the deceased

She'd wielded a wicked deck of cards. Here, she said,

Is your card the seven of swords, or the Huntress,

the lady of situations?

Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,

And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,

Which is blank, is something he carries on his back

Which you are forbidden to see. 

I do not mind the Hanged Man nor fear death by drowning.

I fear crowds of infected people,
Unmasked, they walk 'round me in circles.

Neither MERS nor SARS are in your stars,

But I could write a novel about the virus 

Coming for you, poor death's Fool,

For whom the Horrorscope spring's a surprise.

Reading your fortune in dead men's eyes,

The Emperor's raiment foretells who dies.

Unreal City, swamp and bog

A failed nation's dawn under a brace of fog.

A crowd flowed over Brooklyn Bridge, so many;

I had not realized death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent are now exhaled,

As each soul fixed their eyes under six feet.

Flowed up the hills and down the street.

To where the others were dressed and waiting

For a dead sound of the final stroke of doom.

I saw one I knew, and stopped his crying

By calling his name and death defying, said

"That corpse you planted last year in your garden,

Had it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year? 

Or has your sudden loss disturbed its bed?"

"Oh keep the dogs far from it, that's friend to men,

Or with his nails he'll dig it up again!"

You! Hannibal Lecter - mein doppelgänger - mon frère!