Do We Poem by Andy Brookes

Heaped heads ashes fall
reciting renditions of sins passed
our litany too long to remember best left forgot

tolling bells ring solemn clutching their dignity.

time tastes gritty

travelled so far along ringed road too near the epicentre
never knowing the beginning
race memory tells its tale silently by carrier wing

yet deep dyed in bones that crumble
a testament to all before and all after
still we taste the ashes of the fallen twisting in the air
or the failed half formed throwaways
loved or unlovable whose story is never finished
but in a half words, half lives, half deaths.