poem #9

 I often wonder 

about death in the city by the sea. 

For many, 

it is nothing. 

A mere roadblock in the daily happenings. 

Someone will see a sack 

in the bad part of town.

Length about six foot, 

weight of a thirty year old. 

Ambulances are called, and it is gone. 

It’s the doctor’s problem now. 

People continue on the road, 

Until the next body is found. 

Maybe it’s from a gunshot, 

A stabbing, 

A poisoning. 

It could be poor,

It could be rich. 

A squabble over drugs

or money

or women 

or religion. 

But the body is never identified. 

Time goes on in the city by the sea. 

It’s involuntary, 

an inevitable. 

Bodies on the road are left lying until found, 

and are forgotten again until the next one comes. 

Then there are the helpless. 

The city is transient, 

But not for the stubborn old, 

Who sit alone, 

Watching the city pass them by, 

Wrinkles forming on delicate foreheads. 

Families gone, 

Children old, 

The only connection through some weekly phone call.

They die in their beds,

Quiet 

but unspoken. 

It is only until they miss the phone call, 

They don’t answer the doorbell,

When people start to realise that something is wrong. 

Their deaths are quiet, 

Alone. 

What is death if not lonely? 

Then there are those who are poor. 

Children will run and play,

Seemingly unaware that they could be shot. 

In the poor parts of town there is nothing to do, 

But find solace in what is there. 

No luxurious toys or snacks, 

Just dirt, decay, and an imagination. 

They will run in muddy rivers of bacteria, 

All pretty severe, 

Developing E Coli and typhoid, 

Suffering tremendously before the bitter end. 

Their funerals are quiet: 

Parents can’t take the whole day off, 

And there are eight other children to take its place. 

Quiet utterances of prayers are read, 

And the parents will leave again. 

It’s grave will remain untouched, 

Not looked after. 

No greenery will grow on the sandy remains, 

And no poetry will be written on a headstone of marble.

There the child lays, 

Unmarked and forgotten, 

A child of heaven, 

Ascending from a life of hell.

But a death in the one percent, 

Is the opposite of what mourning should be.

They sigh when another funeral invite comes in the inbox, 

Of their expensive Apple IPhones. 

They’ll message the host of the other party they’re going to that day, 

 Saying they’ll be late 

For a ‘tragic’ event. 

It’s the bereaved,

And the rest of them.

The friends and distant relatives, 

Who come to funerals as an obligation, 

Not a moral obligation, 

But a social one. 

They all put on a show of despair: 

‘Becharay’,

‘Inna Illahi Wa Inna Illahi Rajaaon’. 

They bring imported flowers: 

Tulips and daisies, 

And foreign chocolates, 

With fancy German words plastered in gold leaf. 

After an appropriate amount of time, 

Where they have showed their face, 

So nobody can deny they were there, 

They leave, 

And wait for a few minutes to be completely out of anyone’s earshot, 

Secretly thankful that they aren’t the dead ones. 

Wearing black ‘simple’ outfits,

That cost several thousand to make, 

More than an average salary, 

They sit in their ACed cars, 

Forgetting the name of the person who has just died, 

Thinking that they are just another dead body, 

In the city by the sea.