Where Owls Rove

15 Bonesman tapped each year
meet in the windowless tomb of silencing fear.
A stone brick space with a vaulted slab entrance
Like a crypt encrypted to entrance their victims.

As gargoyles peer down from above on Harkness tower,
the death bells ring; their conscience falters.
They swallow the sound of gurgling water.
It runs off flat without a gutter
And pours out a lion mouth.

The ledge over the door frames a crown molding,
throwing rainwater free of walls off gabled eaves,
held up by classical pillars with acanthus leaves,
encrusted with the limestone demons of antiquity.

'Ashes to ashes.
Trust to dust.
Enter to seal your fate.'

The Keepers of Death stand still at the gate
to silence and hush the dissenters of fate.
Where all is vanity, a place of insanity.
Cremator burns the dead of late.

Geronimo's bones sit atop their mantel.
The Axis of Evil lights a dark candle,
and they dine with Hitler's silver spoon
beneath the regolith of this twisted tomb.

Graves they exhume; they burn to make room.
To Moloch they sing the most evilest of tunes
burning babies upon the Cremation of Care's pyre.
Like Hansel and Gretel, to be smothered into fire
in the forest of the Bohemian Grove.
The secret location where owls rove.

James Dye is a college student from Dubuque Iowa.

Find more by James J. Dye in the Author Index.

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