Grim - Austen Hensely (unpublished works)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

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

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.