POEM: THE BONES DISTRICT

The Bones District

In the district of bones,

rattling winds and chattering leaves,

and sambas of drying flowers

greet the new arrivals.

In the streets,

lines of skeletons click

like strings of patient beads

parted in doorways.

They stare at the 
curiously-marrowed
as they lurch wetly by.

Meanwhile at the riverbank,

drifting newspaper relics

flutter like startled fish;

among hawthorn bushes

their flesh tears to dust

along the woody spines.

By a bridge over a slow stream,

cattail heads

explode into clouds of tiny parachutes,

dressing the nearby witch grass

in petticoats of seed.

From behind a fence like a broken zipper

comes a choir of throaty whispers—

ghostly, dry-skinned frogs,

no longer content with the season.

And at a window,

where tall grass scratches the sill,

loose blinds bang softly in the breeze.

In the district of bones,

understory goes the way of shade,

while under the sky’s hot eye,

flesh falls away.

And along the dusty avenue,

the parade slows,

then stops its putrid march

so an orchestra of sighs can at last begin.

So, Halloween is just passed and I'm still in the mood for some trick-or-treating. I don’t know what possessed me to write this curious little ditty, or when I wrote it, but it sure is spoooo-key! I have a lot of fun re-reading it, though; I like the images of ghostliness and a haunted landscape which seems devoid of humans. I'm sure I had the Mexican Day of the Dead in mind, as well as funeral traditions in New Orleans where the coffin is accompanied by a jazz band to the grave site. (That would be a satisfying way to go out—in a parade with people laughing and singing, “OH, when the saints, come marching in…”)

     Are there any people in the district of bones? Are they the “curiously-marrowed” who march "wetly" by? The only things that are alive and reasonably fleshed are the frogs who are heard but not seen. Other sounds in the district come from window blinds banging in the wind, or the rasping of leaves, or pieces of newspaper fluttering against the dried branches of thorn bushes. The sound of the skeletons who line up to watch the parade is like the clicking of beads hung in doorways that are parted, perhaps suggesting something like a samba’s raspy music. Life is suggested only with the frogs and briefly in the exploding heads of cattail reeds, whose seed is released to drift on the wind where they come to act as a kind of ‘coat’ for the nearby tall grasses. (Though with act of dispersing their seed, the cattails will soon complete their life’s purpose and begin to die.)

     In this deserted land the only things resembling anything remotely alive are the crowds of skeletons lining the parade route, watching the procession that will soon stop ‘dead in its tracks’. And is the “orchestra of sighs” part of the parade? Or is it merely the wind? Why will the parade stop when the sighing begins? Will it march on after it finishes, or is this the parade's final destination, stopped mid-journey in the street?

     One thing that this imagery suggests to me is how the ‘land of the dead’ and the ‘land of the living’ never seem to actually meet anywhere. Those watching the parade stare at the “marrowed" walkers. Do they stare with any understanding of the marchers, or do they stare with incomprehension in their eyes? (How do skeletons see, anyway?) As well, there is no indication that the marchers are aware of the spectators; they seem less than ghosts in this land, with only remnants of their time on earth in evidence—bits of newspaper fluttering in the wind; deserted buildings, broken fences , empty streets, a bridge. There is no sign of human life or activity—just a bridge over a slow stream and dusty streets under a hot sun. Where there is any shade, the “understory” must follow where ever the shade takes it. There is a contrast or comparison between the sun and shade imagery. And for some reason the phrase: “As above, so below,” comes to mind, suggesting, for me, that the sun above and the shade below are connected; that you can’t have shade without the sun, in a sense. The shade, in turn, affects the growth (or lack of, or death) of the “understory” beneath it.

     Well, I won’t dip too deeply into the murky waters of my psyche, only to say that I still have fun reading this poem, even if there are darker elements to it. And since this poem is chalk-full of death imagery, one of my favourite songs about death is by the great Reverend Gary Davis—“Death Don’t Have No Mercy.” Take it away, Reverend!   

Cheers, Jake.