A hundred years of nameless faces here

Peer out at me and ask why they should sit

Lit by artificial light, wear dark suits,

Boots that pinch, hats sure not to be in style

While purchasing cheap immortality,

Facsimiles of life at lower rates.

Commensurate with vanity and pride,

Alongside the starched frills and furbelows,

Calicos and mustachios come demands

And pleas to be remembered, to be named,

Claimed each time I turn the pages of these dead

Fled into the realm against which they inveigh.

I am the mirror into which they stare,

And they the image of my own despair.

Parks Lanier, Jr has Appalachian ancestors from northern Georgia and far Western North Carolin. He is a professor at Radford College and was president of the Appalachian Writer's Association from 1990 to 1994.

raw || truth
______________________________
Past Memories:

2006-01-13 - Fear In My Skin
2006-01-10 - The Moon - Our Silent Audience
2005-12-14 - Promise
2005-12-11 - Pure Bliss
2005-08-31 - In This Grave