"Walking Dead" POEM

When I take my walk
Ghosts haunt my steps

Never wishing to intrude
Just to converse

Usually upon some abandon street corner

I try to avoid them
Taking brambled paths

In river’s bend or hidden
Amongst choke berries

They ambush me with stories

I stumble into
British regulars congregating
With butternut and gray

Yet they
Allow me to pass
Unmolested

As I too once carried a rifle and a pack

Slaves shaking
fear my tread
Hearing hounds calling

Speaking in tongues
Long gone from memory

Eternally running away
From the swamp that holds them
still

Dead relatives have found me
Tracked across desert wastes

I have them perched in trees
Chatting amongst squirrels

Waiting to gossip again once more.

Once in a blue moon
I
find
them

Surprising them
In a day time nap
Shaking them to motion

Drunk on life
Telling them to sleep it off

I kick them out of my way
Like a bouncer in a bar

To a graveyard of their choosing.


DS Baker