Looking at a Picture

Some things are best left buried, 

lest they awake and cry for help

unlike paving stones unearthed 

that the previous owner laid.

Home-made premixed cement 

poured into square wooden frames, 

shaped by wooden two by fours,

that Romans might have made,

when electricity was the shock, you got, 

touching another's skin,

and rumor was what gossips traded in.

Invasions of the undead,

some memories my brain's 

earmarked for examination, again, 

like pop ups, preempting a screen. 

What could I pay my brain to stop

this ceaseless campaign it's waging?

Moments it's tagged to display

at any time of day, visions

that make me pause, suddenly stunned,

to be reminded sometimes shamed

looking at a picture my brain has framed.

Richard M Russell (C) Dick Russell

                        2023