In The Cities Of The Dead Poem by Mark. A Heathcote

How is it that skulls wear expressions?
Such as shock and horror.
How do they exhibit pain and remorse?
How is it possible they seem, at times, to be laughing?
And at other times cry irrepressible tears
Brought on by years of punishment and purgatory.
The accumulated experience of living
It seems written even on their faceless bones.
Their dreams and hopes never materialised.
Their heartaches never healed.
How is it I still see their suffering,
Their joys and their tribulations?
The trials of their lives etched in eye sockets,
A jawline and a furrowed brow.
How is it that I weep for some and rejoice for others?
Weep for those poor plague victims.
In the cities of the dead.
Like those in the catacombs beneath the Vatican
Or those buried alive by Mount Vesuvius.
The vessels of the demented dead
Are arguably with us almost everywhere.
Even more so, living now above the ground,
Wanting to join those long since they were gone before themselves.
Wearing satanic death masks wherever they go.
How is it that skulls wear expressions?
Such as shock and horror.
How do they exhibit pain and remorse?
How is it possible they seem, at times, to be laughing?
And at other times cry irrepressible tears
Brought on by years of punishment and purgatory;
Honestly, I don't know.
Because my heart is still buried and vortexed in a time capsule,
A mausoleum of hope, not despair, living without a care.