#narrativepoetry #poetrywriting #poetry
Ffraid knows what inspired this one.
Percy whistled as he worked
At digging farmer Gerald's grave;
Proper solemness he shirked,
The dead cared not how he behaved.
Or so it seemed, at least, until
A hand burst from a grave that night,
That of a swain, untimely killed,
Who now gave Percy such a fright.
Stunned and still he watched wide-eyed
As a second dead hand emerged
And both tore the soil aside
Until a head from darkness surged.
Clad in rotted carcass-weeds,
A bloodless death-cut at his neck,
The swain climbed free e'en as he wheezed
Out mud and stones in vulgar flecks.
At last he looked about and saw
The shaking Percy with his spade.
The grave-churl merely stood and gawped,
Courage and courtesy mislaid.
'Thanks for your help.' Cursed the swain
As best he could with severed throat,
Whistling from his wound profaned
The angry scorn for which he'd hoped.
In any case, he stood upright
And brushed his filth-caked raiment down
Ere he wandered 'neath the moonlight
To do who-knows-what 'bout the town.
Percy could but quail long after
For this dead man now returned.
But he dropped his spade at last and stirred
To seek a pub, a pint he'd earned.