| "The Dead Pushing the Dead" | | | | horror writer for the magazine "Weird Tales," friend of |
| (Part two, to: "In a Birdless Sky) (After the French, | | | | George Sterling, Lovecraft, and Jack London, the |
| Trenches, 1914 a Soldier of the Great War: WWI)) | | | | poem called, "Meerschaum." |
| Chapter One - Corporal Anton | | | | Not an ingenious or even bold poem, for the most part, |
| They were still huddled at the cemetery (several | | | | more prose than poetic (free verse for the most part, |
| family members) when the sun had barely set, the cold | | | | with stanza form and a slight rhyme schema), more |
| face of the moon showing, it was winter in the | | | | nightmarish than reality, a poem-quite honestly, by a |
| Midwest of the United States, the year 1914: the old | | | | personage who wished it to be discovered, after his |
| man, Corporal Anton's father, inside his head, he heard | | | | death: and so it was. |
| bugles, they rang and then ceased, the sounds of guns | | | | After reading it, the discoverer placed it safely in a |
| reverberated, then ceased, as if bouncing from one lob | | | | bank vault, his safe deposit that is, not because it was |
| to the other inside his skull. He, like his son, had been in | | | | priceless, no, rather simply because it was the only one |
| war; his was the Civil War, unlike WWI, where they | | | | of its kind, and a lost poem found, perhaps the last to |
| had to live in trenches throughout the war: it had | | | | be brought into being, I presume. |
| almost faded from his memory, now brought back by | | | | Here was a poem of a man not wanting to escape |
| the funeral. | | | | the depths of hell, but more fascinated with what he |
| Tomorrow there would be a parade for the deceased | | | | saw, when he visited it for a moment in time; and |
| solders of the Great War, of the county. No one did a | | | | perhaps it wasn't really Hell he visited but a room |
| thing but become more still, as the coffin was lowered, | | | | above the infamous resort itself, or somewhere near |
| even the dogs that chased one another across the | | | | by. |
| graveyard meadows, stood at attention for a moment, | | | | I know for a fact, the reader had first read it, in an |
| curious. | | | | ordinary manner, to speak of, and then reread it for its |
| The old man, sixty-four in October of the previous | | | | content and imagery, its originality. It had none of his |
| year, now it was January of the next, stood still in the | | | | older style to it, nor was even its intensity of imagery, |
| half frozen drizzling rain (in old, Oakland Cemetery). | | | | rendering the complexities of those far-off days (thus, |
| The silence was unbearable, a pitched silence that the | | | | the reader proposed it was written prior to his death, |
| human ear was not used to, a dead silence, with eyes | | | | hastily perchance); but what it did have was his desire |
| closed, and mouth shut (a tongueless, eyeless silence): | | | | to re-examine the nature and function of his most |
| on the hard frozen grass-no motion at all, thus, came a | | | | basic assumption, unequivocally to his second world: |
| gigantic uproar, like the blast of a volcano, hitting his | | | | that hell was hell, and a home to be (in a way, he was |
| heart, likened to a wave-crashing all around his sides, | | | | chasing, a longing, if not yearning, and got a glimpse of |
| tides' overflowing his heart valves; a windless flame | | | | it, or perhaps he got a glimpse of the more boring, if |
| dried up his mouth. He held an unknown glare in his | | | | not better part of that world). |
| eyes, as if they had received an electric shock, | | | | Perhaps the poem was taken while in a trance, or |
| immobility prevailed, and here and there eyes looked at | | | | taken from a dream, or else a vision, an illusion will |
| him. His face revealing-death! | | | | even do, conceivably, a nightmare, one where the |
| Chapter Two - The Light | | | | walls burned and the cellar was like a furnace, as one |
| He knew perhaps-at this juncture-tomorrow's parade | | | | might expect from him, but it wasn't like that, it was |
| was out of the question, he'd most likely miss it, but it | | | | that he found himself in private company, this was the |
| didn't matter. Then the old man tumbled to his knees, | | | | foundation of his poem, and perhaps after he wrote it, |
| akin to an old factory building, dropping to the ground. | | | | puff, puff, he was gone, employed by the counsel of |
| The people around him faded, completely faded into a | | | | Hell itself, or deceived by it, and brought to those so |
| dusty dark night (one eternal night to be): he could only | | | | called burning walls and allied furnace, I just mentioned. |
| see shapes and a mass of huddled shadows, he | | | | But enough of this guessing, I shall now provide the |
| knew now he'd miss tomorrow's parade for sure. | | | | poem (and let me add to this brief, I assume it is his |
| Next, he saw a lighted window, and the motionless | | | | poem, since it was written on the back of his sketch, |
| silhouette of his son, he was standing clean and | | | | and faded it was, and I shall bring it to life as I see it, |
| decorous, in his infantry uniform, the one he died in. | | | | and the sketch is beyond dispute, that he was the |
| Then the old man began to push forward to get a | | | | artist-and the owner of the sketch-oh well, we shall |
| better look (the dead pushing the dead); his previous | | | | leave that to posterity to unwind): |
| life, was like a dim lit bulb, now turned off, for within a | | | | Meerschaum |
| blink of an eye, a new and gratifying sensation had | | | | They sleep at a distance of the Master's bed,realism |
| filled him, completely... | | | | made drunk: the great in power, the rightful owner of |
| Written 10-22-2008, inv Huancayo, Peru, at the Mia | | | | the dead, the first of the three- personages, Satan. |
| Mamma Café, in El Tambo: somewhat | | | | They sleep at a distance of the Master's |
| inspirited by my Grandfather, who was in WWI, Anton | | | | bed,renegades, henchmen, the attentive dead,clay |
| Siluk, born 1891, died, 1974, dedicated to his memory, | | | | tobacco pipe in hand, as if, to keep occupied-as Satan |
| and his war. The story was originally called, "The Cold | | | | rests! |
| Face of the Moon." | | | | He, the Ten Winged Beast, inspects, even anticipates-I |
| Clark A. Smith's Lost Poem (Meerschaum) | | | | saw him, and witnessed nodisturbances, nor did I fail to |
| Unbecoming it read, the dead poet's poem, the one | | | | detect it. |
| found on October 7, 2008, found on the back of a | | | | Yes, oh yes, Satan does rest! |
| sketch he did, called "Nightmare," this, once famous | | | | |