Poem: Humanity’s Prize

 by Isabella Tarttelin

A man died here yesterday,

Not that you would know it.

Police came where he lay

And scraped him up from the concrete.

Anguish threatened the ground,

feeling but unfelt in sound,

not that they could see it.

Their bodies concave in the

blank screens blank stares

blank dreams blank cares.

Hollow.

I looked into their eyes and saw no sorrow.

Come morning they must adjust,

with muffled frustration,

And concealed disgust-

but no flowers.

It is only she who mourns him now,

in his unnatural natural,

by the guilt in her grey gown

and despair in her spiteful sigh.

I wonder his mind,

Leaning over, soul beating;

Was she in time?

Bunching her gown, colours streaking

calling, calling.

The brown leaves fall

but he who controls his final breath

toyingly teeters in the hands of death.

He is praised for his powers

but to no encores,

to no applause,

no flowers.