Spectral from Flanders fields

A Poem by outlandish

Dying in vain for the vainglory of empire

A split vein sunset bleeds over the black mountains mixing with the winter clouds as night creeps across the sky like a thief stealing light from every corner.

A hollow armed treed is drenched in the soaking blood of the sun as it extinguishes the day.

It is eerie quiet like the deafness that comes after war ends.

Things move unseen and uncared for save for the predator eye or the victim locked in stillness.

Dim lights flicker in the distance, we assume there is home, voices and thoughts of the living.

We stand alone in the awe of distance that keeps us apart like spectral sentinels.

Knowing the void hides mystery we imagine ourselves comforted in your living arms.

Contacts have long broken our names merely mark us on long planted stone.

We are the dead, we live only as memories our trials our loves our failures all ghosts, barely remembered by those who knew us too well.

Neat rows await you as you exit in turn; our memories glow as dim as the last drops of blood at sunset left by a fiery trail, the giver of light.

Look down as you pass us by, read our names and give us a passing thought for we are all of humanity that has passed and you are the here, while we are the fall that is waiting.

The fallen.