Forgotten Ones

by Janet Kenny

Collateral Damage

I am a corpse who cries after my death.
Bad form I realise. People prefer
quiet cadavers whom they can inter
to those whose muffled weeping soaks the earth.
Listen—we lie beneath your garden path,
under your pavements. If you hear us stir
as you are passing, you must not defer
any enjoyment, any chance to laugh.
Weeping our rusty tears we haunt the grey
under-stones, cling like creepers to the damp
edifice of the past. Please bless our grave,
in restitution for the sorry way
we were forgotten, buried in a swamp,
dumped in a drain, crammed into a cave.

Some of Janet Kenny’s poetry can be found at her website http://janetkenny.netpublish.net/.

14
March, 2011

Janet Kenny has metamorphosed from painter to classical singer to anti-nuclear activist, researcher, writer, illustrator and poet. She started in New Zealand and zigzagged across the globe to finally settle in Australia. She has published fairly widely as a poet.

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Although this poem was not written for the victims of the Christchurch earthquake, it very much resonates with the poet’s feelings for her old home city.