Barry Seiler

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Ashtray

Now that the Great War is over
and the secret accords are signed
we must see to the ashtrays
as they come marching home.
We must arrange parades
and solemn speeches
by politicians in top hats.
Those who have served so well,
so long, so far away,
must not be cast aside.
We must retrain them as coasters,
as paperweights.

Barry Seiler has published four books of poetry, three of them by University of Akron Press. Frozen Falls, the most recent, was a finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize. He appears in the recent anthology New Voices: Contemporary Writers Confronting the Holocaust.