Poppies

The wind is a pretty keening hiss

Dry seeds rattle in a tight bud-shell

And from the needle-stems unwind

The fairest blossoms of their kind

Too sweet a red to paint the halls of hell

Lifting my feet out of dry grass

Earthbound, leap free, let me fall away

Through the velvet and into night

The silver flames will hold me tight

To look back up into moonbeams painting the bay

Borne on in a silver veil of tears

Sleeping, wrapped in sheets of poppy-haze

To short-lived stars that flare and fight

To breach the shadowed bowl of night

Surrendered to the dark before the days

Red and green stars standing clear

Upon shining columns perched in the sea

Miles and miles down into the deep

Light to make a blind man weep

Light to make these demons turn and flee

Clouded eyes reflected back

Questioning the end of this long night

And whether the sun will come around

To bring the day to this dead ground

And whether we shall last to see the light

Dull eyes gazing into black

Never to smile and never to weep

Tinted milky with dawn's first ray

But they will never see this day

Encased in the needle's all-consuming sleep