Grim - Austen Hensely (unpublished works)


    In memory of those before me


    I feel naught but scorn for the reaper.


    He stalks on bone thin legs, a haughty grin


    On his cocky face


    As he grips with withered hands his smug, tired scythe.


    His gait is filled with arrogance, a lazy gait which condescends.


    "I''ll get to you," it says, "You just sit and wait".


    A snicker, as he knows he''ll come just when it pleases him,


    And make you wait for hours just to put you in your place


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    Or crash in uninvited, and spit on all your timekeeping.


    "I keep my promises", he hisses;


    But promises are exactly what his farm tool butchers.


    With every swing, he breaks them - from, to, for, of.


    And for what? He does not harvest, only cuts, new grain and old, and weeds and thorns and all.


    Out with the old and the new and the tall and the short and the fair and the bold,


    So don''t promise, don''t plan, don''t hold, think, expand


    Because he''ll shuffle up and hoick his stinking phlegm


    Through skinless lips and sticking teeth to splash upon your face and hands.


    We''ll grind him up.


    Those fingers will make good meal for soil.


    His ribs will make good sand for glass.


    His feet will be dust, and motes from his skull


    Will drift in sunbeams in the air.


    We''ll break the scythe


    It''s blade made gone


    And its staff set to grow again, bear leaves which shade the knots


    Thin hands once used to clutch.


    His cloak we''ll burn,


    His horse we''ll turn to pastures green,


    Though his memory we''ll keep.


    And this,


    And all of this,


    We state.