Voices That Speak of Dread

I walk with voices that speak of dread

Surviving death blows inside my head

All the while my feet are beckoning…

 

Stu… stut…stuttering aimlessly

Splitting tongues with knives

Reeking of poison

confirming my lies

 

I make a sign of the cross and pray for souls

That killed all men who dared to be foes

My tattered repairs meant to hide

The things I wished to remain hidden

But only remind me of the things

I lied about to forget my pain

 

And in the dust where I drew

the lines that my years had written

I found that the pains of the gains

of my hours had been forgotten

 

rjh

Z

 

This was published in the chapbook Old Horses, in 2017. It foreshadows the soldier John Hapflik in the novel The Confessor of Littlefield.