Poetry

On Culloden Moor

The POM prompt #19: Things that go Bump in the Night

The battlefield was quiet and near deserted, dark, the air cold and murky with the fog of departed souls

Once, men rushed to a violent end, destruction raged, 1500 fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons an hour by gruesome conflict devoured the tried and tested charge a colossal failure

Ribs cracking, flesh rent in the horror of muskets and bayonets canons breathing fire that flayed life from limbs Bodies heaped together, mounded over, clan by clan fervent breath stilled, lungs as empty as the eye sockets in a forgotten skull The blood soaked earth wailing to the tune of spectral pipes

This scene of a merciless government rout now little more than a peaceful rolling moor of heather, criss-crossed by walkways that lead tourists through downfall’s plot A place of quiet, but not of peace, not of silence

I heard the men speak as I stood before those graves grown over with time crested by the flora of their grandfathers Their voices worming up through the hardened ground

Later, in the wee hours my boarding house room choked with air congealed the resounding stroke of 3am beat upon my heart like a battle drum Defilement’s dread gripped my limbs, dirged into my wakeful ears the hymn of unrest

I huddled in frozen terror with the sight of soldiers in regalia dressed alive again, rising one by one from the disquieted plain Accusing eyes fixed on mine the icy glare of loss profound and ages spent in wait for recompense withheld

What grim motions of corruption accompanied these felled heroes dogging their phantom feet even into the beyond

Oh, Flower, I would not care to be haunted by your likes again Leave me be, and slumber deep

This poem is in response to Christina M. Ward’s prompt on The POM: #19, Things That go BUMP in the Night

Inspired? Check out all the great prompts at The POM here

Thank you to the editors and thank you to all my poem writing brothers and sisters at The POM for giving me a home there!