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RobertB
Senior Member
since 1999-09-26
Posts 1104
Champaign, IL

0 posted 1999-12-03 06:52 PM


I really feel I have to explain this one and if I may, I ask the moderators to perhaps on some poems, that I be allowed to give a background on where and why I wrote them.

This one came to me a day or two after a bonfire and weiner roast. Some of the young boys decided it would be fun to jump over the fire. In fact, being a child inside, I had thought of it long before they even did!

Anyway, as the adults here know, that can be dangerous and it was. Two boys hit together above the fire and the smaller fell in. He was burned badly on his hands and arms.

At the hospital, his mother and I were in the emergency room and he was sedated. She asked the doctor when they would peel off the dead. I said, "What did you say??" She explained that she was asking when they would peel off the dead skin. I thought wow...and this poem came to me the next day, only it had changed in my mind. It had become a poem about the Bubonic plague of Europe.

Peal of the Dead

When at last the call came forth,
the Jesters, Jugglers and Fire Jumpers
abandoned their preoccupations
to lend a hand to the wagoner
as he sang a song to the living
and chanted a dirge for those not....
The Peal of the Dead.


Robert

© Copyright 1999 RobertB - All Rights Reserved
Ohme
Senior Member
since 1999-07-17
Posts 816
Texas
1 posted 1999-12-03 06:59 PM


Nice poem Robert. Sorry about the tragedy that inspired it.
Elizabeth Santos
Member Rara Avis
since 1999-11-08
Posts 9269
Pennsylvania
2 posted 1999-12-03 07:50 PM


Events of the past so well brought to light
Liz

RobertB
Senior Member
since 1999-09-26
Posts 1104
Champaign, IL
3 posted 1999-12-03 07:56 PM


everything turned out OK in the end!

------------------
if you can dream; you can fly...if you are flying; you are dreaming.

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