Burial
Jamie Sinclair

This is a graveyard of flowers
Once rich and vociferous with colour and corpulence
Now forgotten and undressed and flesh stretched over bone
After protruding bone, some strewn by muggy zephyrs
Some left in methodical arrangement
Mellifluously, they jut shabbily out of metallic coffins

Unanswered questions and their bodies lay buried in the ground
They must be hopped over, using the child shoe gap in between
If you tread on the sponge soft mound of earth, they will wake and pull you in
And down into the sticky fog of regrets you will go
Wet as a cling film covered face
You can’t touch the cold marble slab with fleshy, living fingers

The sweet, sickly fug of old flower water and some overturned earth
Lingers into that house so holy
Detection of ancient dusts and losses and joys
The fans of light intrude on the nodding congregation, regardless
Cast from the great finger tips of a giant

Later I realised where the earth smell was coming from
Dug that morning
The solemn words pass by, like the times I hopped about 6 rows in front and to my left
I’m striding clumsily now, 6 months gone
Between the beds of those departed, in grown up shoes that do not fit the width
And I read the inscriptions, now as then

Distant crowing became like a mantra
Pretending to be Christian
The fluttering of feathers roll in like waves, gently slanting
The answers still remained the same

The day's sun gives way to mellow moonbeams
Some peace is reflected onto glazed eyes of those who are left to bear
Blessings are embellished upon the faithful, into the glass pours a maroon velvet tide
Out again, in, out with the old


Richard
 
I have attached a poem I would like to be considered for poem of the month. I have never submitted any of my poems to anyone before so I would really relish some feedback if you are able. I am 25 and have been writing poems for most of my life about many different subjects.
 
This particular one is a little depressing, it is about my nan's funeral (we were extremely close) and subsequent burial in a graveyard I used to play around in when I was little - and the fears a child has about being dragged into graves by zombies. Infact she was buried a few metres from where I used to hop between graves and take rubbings from the stones. I had no idea she would be buried at this particular cemetery either as the service took place a couple of miles away.I was also 6 months pregnant at the time and hadnt set foot in the place for 15yrs or more.
 
I hope I have described  it well enough, I also hope it's not too depressing for you.
 
Yours sincerely,
Miss Jamie Sinclair

what happened to the poem of the month competition?

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