The Recluse (Cook)/In the Grave
In the Grave
By Donald Wandrei
And I am dead.
Six feet deep I lie,
And I am dead.
I can not move an eye;
I can not move a thigh;
I can not even sigh,
For I am dead.
Set, fixed, immovable my head;
Set, fixed, immovable my bed;
Set, fixed, immovable myself, now wed
To coffin, earth, the dead.
All the rottenness, I dread;
All the flesh on which fat worms have fed;
All the slime and mould that slowly spread
About me, who am dead.
Nevermore shall I hear sound
In my tomb beneath the ground,
In my grave beneath my mound.
Six feet deep my corpse lies, drowned
In dissolution’s rot. Around,
Eternal night, and earth damp, black, and cold
That presses on my grave and me, all rolled
In my own decomposition. Thick, white worms have lolled
Their dripping tongues from my soft flesh that, old
And spoiling, lured them. But I could not squirm
When I felt through me spread the germ
Of worm that multiplied on worm
Until my dead flesh stirred. I only lay,
Sick, still, and weary, while they ate their way;
I only sighed to feel them play
And wriggle through my gray
Corruption. Six feet deep
I lie in my last sleep;
Six feet deep.
I feel the worms that creep, creep, creep,
I feel the worms that leap
In ecstacy to reap
The harvest, and to revel deep
In dark liquescence. Mocking maggots peep
At me and slyly chuckle while they keep
Their festful riot in my melting heap.
I now have ceased to bloat;
Worms now have ceased to gloat,
Or in my dead flesh foul to float,
Forevermore.
Stained is the coffin floor
Forevermore.
My corpse was once a festering sore,
And rotten in each swelling pore,
And rotten to the very core,
But now that time is gone of yore
Forevermore.
My body will not pour
A noisome pool as once before.
My bones are hoar
Forevermore.
Dark, dank, cold, dead,
Silent, still, old, dead;
Dead, dead,
Forever dead.
Dead, dead,
Forever dead.
Flesh? Fled.
Forever fled.
Body? Spread.
Forever spread.
Soul? Dead.
Forever dead.
Forever dead, dead, dead.