Poem: 'Graveyard'

 by Oscar Mellers

A gentle drip of boiling blood spills from a vengeful man;

His lips icier than they were when he was living.

Those mere moments ago,

When his crimson poison was still hot to the touch, 

His life - his memories - were torn from him,

As if it were something he wasn’t allowed.

But next to him, a pool of still scarlet rests beneath a heroine,

Her warm embrace fading as she takes her final exit;

Her bows cut short by the hands that seized her life.

No more than a few minutes ago,

She could recall each significant event of her life,

And remember the joys and the sorrows of what was.

Two corpses, both marinating in the watery mud,

One evil– I suppose evil isn’t the right word.

Was he evil? What makes someone evil?

Evil to whom? The enemy?

Was she a saviour? What makes someone a saviour?

A saviour to whom? Her supporters?

A righteous man is wicked in the eyes of his nemesis;

A tyrant is made loving in the view of his followers.

These two shells have been silenced to a name,

And the memories of those still living.

Physically? A grave.

All are condensed to a grave.

When they are forgotten,

There is nothing to distinguish these two,

But the gravestone that lies at the head of their graves.

And in their graves, they are both confined to the same wooden box:

The most tyrannical, destructive man in the world, and a courageous heroine.

What separates heinous from hero?

Two silenced shells once inhabited by two juxtaposing lives

Will soon be confined to a wooden box.

And once I die - once you die - and once all memories die,

All that is left is a name.

The name.

A body.