the color of the dead

It is not always red,
death is often an abstraction
sometimes green with envy of better rest
longer sleeps at night when there lacks slumber
sometimes it is blue, mostly, for the trace
it leaves, on the ground, like a storm
that will not end
sometimes we cannot tell
oak tree, or sandal wood, whiffs
there are a million shades
of dead
and so is the metaphor, of gold and lead
eating out my neighbor's head