The Charnel House

Once you've known death- Smelled, tasted, felt it's breath Tingling your spine, you can never completely Leave that house behind Once you've seen the glassy eyes The unmoving form is forever reborn Like cotton candy on hands at the fair Like the scent of a lover hangs in the air And the vision of road kill you want to forget It's on your mind, and in your face, That stiff form so bereft of grace The shadow you've banished inside Follows you; and you can't leave it behind You think it's walled neatly off by a lie Far away in some dim alien sky But it infuses all your plans and thought Those nagging memories can't be bought People shouldn't bleed for having loved Our eyes should be saved for the livings light The first death kindles the last goodbye I know the signs, now seared upon my eyes And deep inside, there are hidden cries My heart's been chained to an ugly wrecking ball Bloodied bits of the past on its circling round Like hyenas, after the victim's gone down.