Afterwards in the temporary morgue
the corpses whispered putrid stories
to the twilit void they once called home.
They repeat the revolutionary verses
sang to a riot-geared audience, their
butchers with cattle-prod arms. They
whisper of a future never to be seen,
a shining dream, an echoed legacy
that darkly reeks inside their parlor.
We wrapped the corpses, students
workers into records to be kept away
until it’s time to reckon with the past.
Until then, no headstone, no speach
to tell but this echo in the morgue.
Today it is OLN at dVerse and we can link up any poem we want. Lillian hosts and we will be live on Saturday.
December 12, 2024
Björn Rudbergs writings 
Whew! Well that’s an unexpected mood for right before the holiday! You’ve gone to the dark side for sure….very effectively!
I am reading a book that inspired the poem…
could almost me the librarian – shelving the dead till “to be kept away
until it’s time to reckon with the past.”
The only problem that the time rarely comes, but when it does it is forceful…
From a distance, it is enraging and nauseating. Up close, from the moans of ghosts, unspeakable. Why I ask, but know no answer. This haunts:
an echoed legacy
that darkly reeks inside their parlor.
I wanted to go behind the body count…. there are stories there.
Your method was very effective. If you’re ever looking for a good book loosely around that idea, “Lincoln in the Bardo” by George Saunders is excellent (though, like your poem, unspeakably sad.)
nd their numbers never end.
alas not
“but this echo in the morgue” That ending is hauntingly powerful. “The whisper of a future never to be seen” so desperately sad. Your poem gives them a voice still.
So sad to think of them whispering their stories, stuck there.
You write of darkness quite well, Bjorn. Able to take us to a place many others aren’t able to … may I send you a dose of sunshine from the Pacific Northwest of the USA? Not for poetry use, for warmth and good holiday cheer.
Until it’s time…
A lot of dark echoes in this poem. You’re a bold poet for writing the whispered stories.
A dark poem for the last one of the dVerse year, Björn. I felt the creepy thrill of the corpses whispering putrid stories and repeating ‘revolutionary verses sang to a riot-geared audience’, and I agree with Laura that it could almost be the librarian shelving the dead ‘until it’s time to reckon with the past’.
I think what happened in Korea recently just showed how important those stories where.
The location and cause are both indeterminate, leaving this sad cold assembly to the morgue of time, victims of anonymous causes and wrongs. Maybe that’s all of the dead, waiting silently in the trek to oblivion. It did make me think of the prison/torture house/morgues now being opened after the fall of Syria. So many lost there who will never be found.
This is incredibly dark and powerful writing, Bjorn! There are so many lives that have been lost in the recent few years … sigh..
I kept hearing the background clanging of the metal beds moving around the room.
Marvellous, Björn.
I like this line on particular:
‘until it’s time to reckon with the past’.
Nice to see you today Björn — and happy holidays my friend. 🙂 ✌🏼🫶🏼
The same to you Rob
Dark and haunting. One shudders at the thought of all those stories waiting to be told
Yes, quite dark but as some might say ‘the dark is rising’ now in the northern hemisphere but soon the days will get lighter…