Poem Inspired from Spam
"Yet another Age Old Promise...the easy way
of course" E-mail from Lillie McDaniel
3/17/04


THE DARK CRY

Clickety clack, clickety clack
As the shrouded hearse
Rode through Sussex Square
Collecting cadavers everywhere
In a nimbus cloud of earthen
Dust

Clickety clack, clickety clack
Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street

Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street

I’ll bury them in prodigious
Heaps

Deep in the fallow earth
To lie

Lest no bubonic germs
Survive

Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street

Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street

The croft of the tenant
Receives no pay

He’ll be the sad caretaker
Of all the graves

Clickety clack, clickety clack
At the midnight hour
Between dusk and dawn
The business of death
Smells dank and strong

The groom of darkness,
Collector of souls
The cockcrow sings
It’s sorrowful crow

Another body has met
His demise
From a terrible Plague
That seems on the rise.

Clickety clack, clickety clack
Lanterns swaying
With their lights alit
To the flagging
Of
The coachman’s
Whip

As his wheels go
Clickety clack, clickety clack
Down narrow alleys
And vacant streets
Laden with sediments
of
Ash and grief

Windows boarded
Doors shut tight
Foreboding cries
Into the night.

The plague besieging
The strong and weak
The unsalutary scavenger
At their feet.

With nimbus clouds
In fluorescein skies
Herr Death
Comes Knocking
The commonality
Die

Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street

Bring all ye dead
Out
To the street
Echoes through the night.


---------------------------------------------------------------
Words Used: flouorescein midnight commonality herr hurst
Flagging nimbus lantern burglar croft cadaver sediment ash
Dusk alley groom salutary caretaker cockcrow collector grieve
robbery