Encircled by a gray-stone wall, a garden bound in withered thrall,
Its leaden breath by wisteria choked, luster vexed ‘neath its cloak.
Adorned with bells that once were bright, now dulled within the shroud of night,
Its roses drowned in waxen cloud, its lilies doomed by hemlock shroud.

Echoing with ruined laughter, silenced once—forgotten after,
And in the ghost it left a trace, the fragrant scent of sickly grace.
The grass is soaked in miasmic dew, speckled with a deathlike hue,
I stand upon my broken dais, with desolation in my gaze.

A morbid whispered breath abounds, a creeping death over the grounds,
And my crumpled marble aspect stares across this decaying tract.
I watch this garden in disdain, while rot consumes my marble brain,
Left to linger upon my form, where bloodless green and shadows swarm.

A maiden’s tears once kissed my base; her garlands wreathed my chiseled face.
Now thorns her fleeting love erase, and mist enshrouds her resting place.
My name was light, my stone was fair, when flowered bloom perfumed the air.
They’d rest beneath my kingly stare; now none recall what lingers there.

Let ivy bind and phantoms stride, my marble eyes no tears shall hide.
Through endless blight, I’ll keep my throne, a monarch still in ruin’s groan.
No blossom shall rise, nor bird shall call, in this place where silence falls.
And so I wait for time’s sting, here in this garden of withered things.
©️2025

Black silhouettes etch the sky,
Midnight streaking its indigo,
Above the weary maple trees,
Sighing as they bend and sway
To the breeze’s quiet nocturne.
 
Beneath, roots clutch the slumbrous earth
With crooked, unyielding fingers,
Unwilling to release their memories,
While stars flicker—half-afraid,
Their glow too fragile to linger.
 
And I, a shadow among echoes,
Strain for whispers of Sunday dinners long gone,
And fireflied nights dimmed by time’s wear,
While the light of my amber youth,
Wanes beneath a pearly moon.
 
Yet as the faint hues of dawn emerge
Blushing the sky in rose and gold,
To soften the sorrows of the night,
I, though dim, let them dissolve
In the silence of nocturne’s passing.
©️2025

Everything is stagnant.
There’s no sound that flutters,
nor do shadows dance.
There’s no surge of dust
that was caught upon a breath
swirling, before drifting down.
Void of all emotion
or lingering dreams
to still a restless mind.
The walls keep their secrets
and silently observe
this nothing that lives.
Yet within this stillness,
something—almost like a breath—
faintly stirs this static space.
Not quite a presence,
nor a memory,
and yet felt
in the silence,
as if it watches me.
And a pulse, soft and nameless,
crawls dreadfully up my spine
to whisper in my ear
that I am—

alone.

Then, the dust settles.
@2025