Breath & Shadow

The Urban Funeral by Stephanie Green

On a moonlit walk through the cemetery
One is never alone
No more can the weary dead rest in peace
With all this damn racket
Boy-racers zooming past, broken bottles
Clanging on the fence
Drunkards and revelers, stumbling through
Shortcut to the pub
I want to sit awhile, and ponder, and dream
But I am not safe
Peaceful, weed-filled, hopeful, worm-drilled
Graffiti and Epitaphs
Behind the graves of their forefathers
Teenagers shoot up
Serenading their ancestors with the latest iTunes
An elegy of hip-hop
No heed have they for the dead or the poet
Desecrators!
They will take their memories someplace else
And I shall write
While the last vestiges of honour float gently away
Into the night

When she's not transcribing braille or penning yet another poem, Steff Green is a roadie for her husband's heavy metal band. Her work appears in Breath and Shadow, Abilities, Strange Horizons, Wordgatherings, Reflection's Edge and From the Asylum, among others. You can read more about her on her writer's website www.steffgreen.com and blog www.small-business-copywriter.com - including her ebook 33 Worst Mistakes Writers Make about Blind Characters.