The Charnel House Poem by Patti Masterman

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.