Sunny day cemeteries

[John Galt]

Sunny day cemeteries are wonderful.
Skinny paths and tree groves,
leaves scattering rays into shade
like a morbid disco ball.
Lawns to fall on and make grass angels,
or to mime catch with a dead uncle,
or just sprint childish circles for the heck of it.
Tombstones are personalized Roman ruins
whose runes tempt daydreams to a once boundless lifetime
of passions that burned for rhetoric and horseback.
Bring a few chairs, cheese, and wine,
recline your legs, and bandy away
your days to the echoes of loved ones.

"morbid" in line 4, strikes a sour juxtaposition with the statement of line 1, the disco ball idea without the modifier works better.

I am having trouble with "leaves scattering rays", I see what you are getting at and the imagery comes through, but I always think it is the sun scattering the rays, (are the leaves actually blocking the rays?
and what we see on the floor are the "unblocked rays of light?.

"whose runes tempt daydreams to a once boundless lifetime
of passions that burned for rhetoric and horseback".

The whole of the above could be cut, it brings nothing for me to the verse, "daydreams to a once boundless lifetime" is too abstract.

I would consider cutting "personalized" in line 8, I assume the narrator is still "playing" and that the tombstones are just normal ones? if so the idea comes through without "personalized".

"recline" your legs seems odd, "recline" for me usually means the whole body reclining/ being propped up in bed for instance, or leaning against a wall. (hope that makes sense).


Uncle died. I loved him alive,
but now I feel nothing: am I diseased?
Everyone chokes on tears of endless sorrow,
the drive down smelt of stale silence,
words said were soaked up by all but me.
A lonely, broken emptiness.
I'm a freak, a leper with an antisocial bell
whose amygdala refuses to sit mourning.
If mother knew, she'd send me away.
A little concrete window, a barbwire basketball court.
I'd be a zombie, feasting on other pathological brains.
But my jollies would forever return to tombstones,
to a wilderness born in the shadows of a dieing sunset.

For me the whole of verse 2 can be deleted, your are telling me rather than showing me, using imagery for instance like in verse 1.
In fact V2 says almost the same thing as V1, I hope you can see that
and discern why V1 is much more engaging for me to read.

Typo- dieing.

Thank you. JG