The Black Rose....

Surrounded by black young men
with black tee shirts
and black headbands,
she walked up to the black casket
and placed one black rose onto the black lapel
of the black suit of her black son

Gone was his childhood
free of worry over material needs
His adult life was filled with charcoal deeds
false friends with murky thoughts
and advice that money
couldn't have possibly bought

His new family is now bearing black roses
holding back black tears
that black dealings had bought
down through the years

His end--
bullets piercing a black hole
into his hardened soul
long before he lived
long before he would get old

How long did his sinister deeds
not regard the pain
seen inside his mother's eyes
and her fruitless cries
to the Lord she would nightly bleed

His eyes.....dreary as midnight
with a hate for a society
that could turn wine back into water
turn sun-shiny days
into starless, sooty nights

He tried to place her in that coffin
worrying about him
fervently praying for him every night
wishing he could escape this fateful plight


Why was his soul so cold and unfeeling
Did he care that while she was kneeling
his deeds pricked at her like pins and needles
Onyx bruises that would never be healing
He had succumbed to the pitch-dark of his sable sins
which seemed to have no end

Did he have no remorse?

Did it bother him that the blood
the drippings of his life,
that was no more...
was hers, too
as it escaped from him
smeared forever across her heart's floor

His love for her was hidden
behind evil choices
behind sweetened telephone voices
saying he was okay
but a life of crime
is the reason she is seeing him
for the last time today

No more crouching in dark shadows
doing dark things in the black of dingy rooms
No more picking his own funeral flowers
picking beautiful roses
black roses....

that should never have to bloom




jakuper(2/22/07)