Once There Was A Bitch Named Poetry

Dead Man's Smile

It was Death who doomed

but Joy who stayed

in this man's room

with the story made

of a man's smile

in the shadow of his body,

soulless, hanging

from the wall in furious fancy.

Why was he smiling?

Was Death a folly?

Was life too absurd

for him to be happy?

Why, he was dead,

why was he not in sorrow?

Why was he not in pain

of a cancelled morrow?

He loved it, I reckon,

he loved that feel

of Death dancing

by the splendid surreal

of a scene of a man

with smiles on the shadows

of his life revoked

with the absence of sorrow

for he was smiling,

hanging there, in peace;

and that mystery

will linger, never to cease.