dirge

there's been enough gold

for one lifetime

and enough blood too

poverty shall haunt me

bending her long diatribes

into the hollows of my ears

like the ghost of a wind

launching the moon

into a cold pale gloaming

the cupboard is empty

and deep inside a

gnawing beetle is cutting

through my room

bringing down the house

onto the dirt cellar

with its smell of cider

and formadehyde

and bitter mushrooms

i do not want the spring

to come upon this land

i want a dirge for everyone

who died here

who spent his finger flesh

in orchard and field

who buried her children

and burnt her furniture

and fed cornmeal to chickens

poverty my long lost

grandmother

take me down where

the workhorse grazes

i want to lie on the hay

and remember it all

i want to eat potatoes

and fall asleep beneath

soundless stars

nothing can hold me

hearty and hale

when everyone i loved

has left this place

only poverty shall have me now

my shirt sullied and rent

with dirt on my face and

worms and beetles

my fairweather friends

and in my hands

a silver spoon the

last one in the drawer

to dig a pit

that's five by two

to better fit a

blind man's daughter

who dwelled with him

for fifty odd years or more

now she lies in the earth

and sheds no tears

nor listens for the push

of the starting buds

it's over and done

she has had enough

the whistling teakettles

and the lily bells that grow

between the corn rows

written by Edgar Allan Poe/ animated and directed by Aaron Quinn/ narrated by Basil Soper