The Dead Aren't Talking

The dead aren’t talking to us. They mutter

Under their lack of breath, or sulk

Towards the eternity that makes them sputter

Like damp flames, the sheer white silk

Of the fatal promise already tattered

And soiled. Why would they want to talk?

After so much disappointment, the battered

Leftovers of the living have nothing to say.

For them, in their void, even language has rotted:

Voice, gesture, image… There’s just no way

They can work up a sweat towards meaning

Or move beyond the mute contempt of a day

That put an end to their days. They’re left leaning

On the sticks and stones of their own odd bones.

The terminal cynicism of a final slow thinning

Is all they can know now of the colours and tones

That were once kind of offered, sort of promised,

Merely hoped for, imagined, invented, between yawns.

(Ivan Phillips fecit 2011)