fallen verses

Remains
For Sue

As if the wife
of a terrible king,
we file past
in the obligatory line
of a state funeral.

The beheading was not
in lieu of divorce
or to birth a republic
but the result
of the decay and
calcification
of your carcass.

Do you see us,
the common people,
as we shuffle around
your dais?

Do you see us
as the littlest ones
shriek in terror
and hide behind
the never quite
fashionable slacks
of their chaperones?

You do not
because your casket
is bulletproof
and transparent
and just on the balcony-
there.

If only the Soviets
had gotten hold of you
before the first
flaking scales fell
and like Lenin
you were taken
for a special bath
and your terrible
countenance
gazed complete.

Would there be
the wrinkled lip
and sneer proving
you are kin to Ozymandias?
Certainly we look
upon you and despair;
though what works…
what works…

Hm. Well, I call it a poem, and since the definition of poetry is so vague, what I say goes, at least on this corner of the internet. I must be among the few people not fascinated by dinosaurs. I mean, sure, they are old… and big… but so what? Are they interesting? I guess so, but come on, Jurassic Park was all about Samuel L. Jackson. “Hold on to your butts.” Now I’m rambling and soon, I foresee, it will become (more) incoherent. If you didn’t come from there, go to Read Write Poem and see the dinosaur poems by other poets. Oh, and since there may be people unfamiliar, Sue is the T-Rex skeleton at the Field Museum in Chicago. Just in case.