DEATH Poem: LEGACY by Andrew Keith

Perhaps it is best to appease the Dead.
Rotting headstones mark temples and beds
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in a will to wait.

Asleep, these temples lie in silent peace,
Epitaphs refusing their faded voices cease.
Inscriptions of heroes and saints abound;
Though, are they true to original sound?

Too often do the living perjure the Dead
With remembrances now confused and bled
From a gushing wound called time –
Too large, too quick, the clocktower’s constant chime.

Perhaps we are frightened that honest epitaphs, conducive
In calling her “Absent” and him “Abusive,”
Should awaken the Dead to haunt us like ghosts
Enraged by justice – slithering, screaming spectral toasts.

Yes, perhaps it is best that the living
Appease the Dead – so “Beloved” it is, truth again relenting.
Permanent etchings now manifesting memories,
Marking fallen temples – lies as legacies.