Monday, April 18, 2005

Composition



Gregarious maggot masses
Armed with mouth hooks
Prepare to rake over the
Black bitter heart
The decaying flesh
Of a lifeless writer
Slumped over a desk littered
With recent rejection slips

The haunting eyes of Anubis,
Watch silently as the skilled embalmer
Works through the night, her fingers
Caressing the artery reverently, impregnating
The lifeless writer with aromatic substances
Masking the decomposition
repelling the maggot masses

The embalmers composition lies complete
With just a hint of sandalwood in the still air
Accompanied by his embalmer, his wife
The dead writer dressed in formal day suit
Awaits Christian love and forgiveness
For the eulogy to be
Tenderly spoken
For the ceremonials to begin

A cell phone’s ring tone breaks the silence
As the writer’s wife
Plans a merry weekend with
A gregarious editor who
Having agreed to publish
The writer’s retrospective
Prepares to rake in royalties

7 comments:

Anita Marie Moscoso said...

Heather...I LOVE it, who'd have thought embalming could be described in Poetry...

Anita Marie

Believer said...

Wow, Heather, you're writing some amazing scientif-icky poetry! Hmmmm. What have you been reading lately? Perhaps you are a fan of CSI? Maybe you got a microscope for Christmas? Just plain talent?
Whoa! As Mr. Spock would say, "Fascinating!" (Mr. Poe would pee his pants!)

Heather Blakey said...

I laughed out loud when I read your comment Barbara. It must seem like I ws given a microscope for Christmas and that I am enjoying playing with my new toy. I am as mystified as you about where all this scientif-icky poetry has emerged from.

Personally I blame Anita Marie Moscosso. It is all her fault. She has lead me astray in this old medical school. There is clearly something in the water in this establishment. Now that might just lead to another poem about parasites in the water. I am certainly just warming up as I delve into taboo subjects like maggots and death.

Heather Blakey said...

“It must be in the water”
She laughs, facetiously
Encysted waterborne parasites
Giardia Lamblia
Cryptosporidium parvum
Have clearly seeped through
The untreated water system
Of the old medical hospital

“It must be in the water
she laughs, facetiously
It cannot be talent
Just spasmodic outbreaks of
Verbal diarrhoea
Contracted from the contaminated water
Within the old medical hospital

Chronic verbal diarrhoea
a serious disorder,
recurrent diarrhoea
Signs of malabsorption
clearly suggesting
a serious underlying
medical problem

Is there a doctor in the house?

Anita Marie Moscoso said...

Is there a doctor in the house?

I wouldn't ask that question to loud...The Doctors Heller may just be around the next corner...or standing in the shadows...

Anita Marie

Heather Blakey said...

You mean the Drs Heller, who, like some medical experimentors killed patients by injecting chloroform into their hearts? Or are you alluding to the Drs Heller type medicos who performed medical experiments at the old Cite de St. Jean de Dieu insane asylum? Now you are really scaring me.

Anita Marie Moscoso said...

Google Delphine Lalaurie...just don't do it late at night. She gives ME nightmares

Anita Marie