Henry C. Smith
The Freeze Dried Grains
we live our lives
caught up
in
mondays
smuggled by
in smoke
from stations to graves
past lights
past trains
and back to sheets
the occasional processions
of flight
and progressions
of fancy
mirror our age
darken out the gloom
we are
constantly surrounded by
strangers
and peers stranger still
because they remind you how
little you know
like moon beams lost
with sun's first red glow
and cows scattered cold over empty winter fields
this is all there is
wake up and smell the freeze-dried grains
we are
our own disguise
our own disease
creeping on amidst wooden words
and promises
like rain drops lost in sobs
Part of the Grain
heart-beats
red
as dawn-sun-mournings
and
ideas
like cold smoke
through the
shallows
of graves.
we live in an
icy wind
where
time is sand-blasted
and
memories
are like
old tables
full of scratches-
always on their last legs.
hear the
endless eddies
of trumpets
through the dirt.
see the
white foam
on
each new
crest-of-horses.
remember
that all of us
are just
part of the
shore-lining-salt
the
barely
diminished
stone
the molten grains
that feed the flames.
The Silence of Sighs
wrap your face
in leaves
become the impassive wind
and every
errant gust
the rust of decades
an old warship
within
the tombs of faceless
men
and
the splintered eye
of it all-
be that
or
it will consume you.
all things turn to
dust
only the dust itself
remains
unmoved with
no face to smile
no place to kiss
no waste to leave
behind.
we are
just bone jokes and moth-wing memories
amongst the silence of sighs.
