Words

[JamesG]

I have read too many words,
so many that I can no longer see them.
They blur together, inadequate.
They stand naked in the storm,
puckered flesh no defense
against the wall of lead and steel.

Words stirred together
like so many battered pigments,
‘til mixed to the ancient smear,
the old blood hue that we all know
brown and unremarkable,
never to be as sharp
as the shrapnel that
cuts across the landscape
from east to west,
and back again.

The old man's scythe
drones back and forth,
back and forth,
‘til all the words,
those useless words
are cut to pieces,
crushed under the cheap concrete rubble,
dazed, broken, forgotten,
lying weeping on the floor.




An oldish one. Feel free to pull it apart and make it better, if possible.