Note the Lividity, Sir

POEM DAY 11

He’s dead definitely dead
Note the lividity and the purple spittle
Foam not spittle sir
Yes foam and the split in his breeches
Where the electrode goes
National inventor hero and the elephant
In the circus and the horse and the pigeon

Note the lividity sir!
That would be Leviticus my lord
And the law is written in fingernails
Digging like talons in the palm
The fine figured work of god
The one man inscribed in the lines and whorls
Of his fingerprint, tree rings and bark
Like a seal, his seal, of god who’s keeping
Records of the naughty and the nice

Note the lividity sir a sure sign of guilt
They say a fellow prisoner threw the switch
But no one was keeping records
After the first jolt before the burning

Note the lividity sir they were sure
Until the blood pulsed out of his palm
Where the fingernail had pierced the skin
And his chest started to heave and hissed
They had to rev the whole ancient gizmo up again.

What a task! Note the lividity, sir.
The reporters were meant to stay mute
And the leather hood shrank around his face
Like shrink wrap in 1890
Quite a show and we are off
‘worse than hanging’