The Vultures

Vultures circle overhead The frontier plains, tainted red By the blooming rose of the sunset

He shed a tear like rotting skin Falling down with sickening grace The shadow of a young man's face Barely held up with nails of tin He arrived and looked on down Upon the face of the ghost town

He sauntered down its empty streets Only followed by a spectre Of a parting bliss to last forever Yet the spectre he did not greet Facing forward towards the sun Scattering shine from the horizon

He approached a deeply splintered door Sodden with a laughing fear That once a boy had slept in here Upon the lonely, dusty floor He lit a lantern, a wrinkled star The spectre watched with hope from afar

The vultures landed on the roof

To roost and keep a watchful eye

And listen for the garish cry A gun belts out when someone shoots He fell into a blooming rose Staining his torn and dirty clothes

The ghost town sang a tired song As the ravenous vultures began to feast The stench of death rising like yeast The spectre joined the choral throng Her voice drowned out by the settled dust Rising with the frontier’s gust

Vultures circle overhead The frontier plains, tainted red By a blooming rose growing out his head

#Classof21 #Poems #Writing #Spring2020Edition