When old Henry finally spoke

He put his head on the table 

And announced 

That it would stay there 

Until someone spilled 

The truth about 

The silence that was stolen 

When he was 14 years old 

Standing on a box to 

Reach his workbench 

In the rapturous brass cacophony that was 

The screaming lifting shop of Victorian horrors 

Breathing fire into metal dragons 

That survived the lightning 

And asynchronous overhead motors 

Sirens 

Heat 

And Thor’s Hammer 

Forever smashing down on 

The sunlit faces of awestruck wonder 

Until hope was battered to a pulp 

And replaced by a laconic godless thrift 

And bloody memories of abandoned equality

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