Henry Smith was a former slave who was tortured and murdered at a public, heavily attended and promoted lynching on February 1, 1893 at the Paris Fairgrounds in Paris, Texas.

It Was A Dark and Stormy Night

by

Justice Putnam

It was a dark a
And stormy night

As I sloshed along
The gale-washed streets
Of a Sam Shepard Paris, Texas

The wooden senoritas
Dressed in their virginal white

The local Padre righting
The fallen-in-the-wind-nativity

The lizards scurrying
Across the rain-lashed
Wind-beaten stones
And sand

The flag of
The Texas Republic
Tattered in
The gusting torrent

Laying claim to
A deeper truth
A deeper meaning
A deeper consideration

Of all that is
And is meant to be

The last Rangers
In flight against
The last lawless
Latin-blooded immigrant

Escaping through

The wind
And the rain
And the dark

To a new destiny

Where the wind
And the rain
And the dark

Are but distant memories

And the tears of yesterday
Becomes the giddy laughter
Of child-like tomorrows

And all of humanity
Is lighted by the
City of Light Paris

While the
Sam Shepard Paris
Is darkened by
The nocturnal blowings

Of wind
And rain

And the extinguished candles
Of a forgotten today.

© 2010 by Justice Putnam
and Mechanisches-Strophe Verlagswesen