On A Funeral Pyre
At 670 degrees,
arm muscles contract.
The corpses fingers
ball into a fist.
The head tilts slightly
back and forth.
It appears to sit up,
adopt a boxer’s stance.
Posed like a pugilist,
it looks around.
right, left,
like it wants to
take a swipe
at whoever
tied it to that
pile of flaming sticks.
One arm swings wildly.
The jaw juts open
like the mouth’s screaming,
“Just let me at him.”
In one hundred
out of a hundred cases,
there is nobody else there.
About the Author: John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River And South and The Alembic. Latest books, “Bittersweet”, “Subject Matters” and “Between Two Fires” are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Rush, White Wall Review and Flights.
Image Credit: Władysław Podkowiński “Funeral March” (1894) Public domain image courtesy of Artvee
As It Ought To Be 