Poetry

Freydoon Rassouli

By

g emil reutter

Forgotten

On the dark lonely hill covered with snow

pieces of granite, marble, cement line up

as if dominos ready to fall. All that remains

of the church that was once here is a hole

in the ground and unlike the other holes

that have been filled, this one remains empty

except for watery mud and the skeleton of

an Oak tree in the center. I am sure if you

could find an old timer here on the hill they

could tell you the name of the church, even

the name of what might have been a town.

There isn’t anyone within miles of this place.

As the loose snow is wiped from the stones

I find some mayors, councilmen, reverends

wives and husbands, children gone too soon

and many stones whose names have faded

into time as have those who occupy the hole

beneath. Some stones barely poke through

the ground, others are tilting and yet others

lay flat sinking into the earth. There was a

time when all these people mattered but for

now and forever they rest forgotten on a

dark lonely hill covered with snow.

Renovation

Nature knows no mercy in the wars of the earth that are

ongoing everyday everywhere. Humans mask it in causes

other beings more honest, it is all about survival.

At the base of a tree whose trunk is twisted into a knot

rotting under the sun two great armies of ants clash. Limbs

bodies pile high until the victors are only left alive.

Along the treeless ridge without grass, a goat chews on a

rock, he can no longer lift his head, his cracked teeth on

the ground. A featherless hawk holds the carcass of a

squirrel in its talons.

In a great valley two great armies of man clash. Bombs

mortars explode, bullets pierce smoke, sulfur fills the air.

Limbs, bodies rot, the violence so great even the rats flee.

No one is safe. Those on the right side and those on left attack

those in the middle and like the ants under the twisted trunk

of the tree, these waring peoples will fight until the victors are

only left alive.

The sun is white, moon is yellow, and there are no clouds in the

sky. Fire rains down from the skies and bursts forth from the

bowels of the earth. Smokeless fires burn the prairies, winds blow

through cities. Skyscrapers fall one by one crushing all below.

Polar caps melt, oceans rise cleansing all that was destroyed. Waters

recede,  A great calm follows, sun shines. Cockroaches scurry

about the small green sprouts that rise from the earth.

It begins again.

g emil reutter

g emil reutter is a writer of poems and stories. Nine collections of his fiction and poetry have been published. He can be found at: https://gereutter.wordpress.com/about/