quiet unto the void

“There is, in every event, whether lived or told, always a hole or a gap, often more than one. If we allow ourselves to get caught in it, we find it opening onto a void that, once we have slipped into it, we can never escape.”
Brian Evenson, Fugue State

no towering pyre is lit on which
will crackle bright against the pitch
the cracked and creaking broken bones
through silent night unbreached by moans

no haggard hags in tattered rags
with gnashing teeth and wringing hands
no half-mast flags and martial bands
or gatherings of black-armed guards

no vigils clasping candlelit
where mothers hold to clinging kids
no flowers piled upon a verge
by hush-filled mourners stiff as serge

no loyal hound morose and still
with hanging head will sit there till
beside no stone-marked burial mound
within no elm-lined hallowed ground

no golden light breaks through the clouds
no oils alight, no laying out of sacred shrouds
no vestal virgins swept along
in reverential dirgeful song

“Democracy is dead
Vive la démocratie!”