Thoughts of my many lives reduced to subtle sighs,
Living breathing hues reduced to written lines.
Up the vines I carefully climb and am then dropped,
Falling slowly, hands gripping rope burns blazing hot
Resisting gravity’s insatiable allure.

Ground meets spine and my lungs collapse
Upon a bed of lichen my eyes bulge, and then relax.
Stars dance constellations behind eyelids and
Are engraved into the stone of memory,
The lichen becoming a decomposing cemetery.

A Midnight bell rings through the night cloaked village.
The high standing clock tower has surveyed the night,
and deemed it high time to sing its chime.

A procession of men in crosses cloaked
sway forward with eyes searching dirt.
A humming unison, softly painting pictures
of mankind's final days.

Their humming chorus carries slowly down the empty streets,
an approaching fog creeping through the alleys,
smelling of soft odor sage.

Ever building ***** chimes build,
Frantic hands introduce each note to next
All culminating to its bitter end,
an apex, each note cryingly rings at once
deep into the fearful fox's core.

Eyes daze, pseudo-malaise,
The soft lament of wasted days.
Whatever needs be done be done,
As long as none insist on clearing
My veiling haze.

Dim those lights, turn down the sounds
My mind becomes crowded,
Elbows bruising.

The further pushed from,
The deeper pushed in.
Raised voices and wagging fingers
Have no effect but a
Deeper shove to the depths.

Firm hands held haughtily between strangers
A meeting with the spirit lost
To the deep end of the well,
The cracks in bone show age

Have so many days passed
since those shining lights were to
iris pressed, or have I just
covered my eyes?

Every man speaks of time
and how fast it flies
but I believe that it
gets off a hard day of work,
barges in the door,
founds its spot on the couch
and then collapses
with a gentle sigh.

Crumpled paper damp with ink,
Immortal words washed away in the running stream.
The paper breathes longer than I,
whats behind longer still,
for the same worries I carry
are etched in the walls of Pharaoh's grave.

When the candle of life is by saliva-wet
fingers extinguished,
Sighs resound and glances cast at the
vacant seat my voice used to occupy.
The present man soon dances for the prying eye of
Retrospection.

A picture printed on the page in many days,
full of laughing smiles and vacant gaze of youth gone
blank,
The Retrospect looks closely, trailing fingers softly
over the black white rendition.
An all too human fear creeps to mind,
and he quickly turns the page.

The melancholy eyes of departing,
The lingering taste of love’s last kiss.
To the skies I've been sentenced and
In the soil you've been left, softly sprouting.

Oh, what I would do, to spread my roots
There next to you.
Our petals caress with love unstressed
And our leaves would collect the morning dew.

But I’ve been plucked,
Snatched in the claws of the bird!
Cast to flight, cursed to explore
A life without you that must be endured.

Upwards dragged but eyes cast down,
Drinking in the sights of her last frown.
The wind pulls me clean, and I see
The last of that morning's dew
Falling with a shimmering gleam.

Words of honey and liquor would flow,
At temples along the rolling hills,
they would grow and ripen and
be uttered at sacrificial flame
If I was born in the vein of Apollo.

Words would meet paper
with crackling energy loaded, ready to burst,
robust in power and accompanied by crashes of thunder
If I were bred of the mighty Zeus.

My speech could flow like lapping tide
and slam against the sterns of braving ships
If I carried within,
the flowing will of Poseidon.

Perfectly forged syllables struck on metals
passionately burning. Resounding clangs
and crashes from my shop would ring,
If the strength of Hephaestus guided
my hammer swing.

But as portraits are painted and
are gone to wind,
Their light touch fleeting pass,
Remorse not felt but only desire
to express and to deliver,
to paint, drop off, and be gone.
My words dance with winged feet
and then exit in retreat, with a bow
and a dashing leap,
Disappearing down the street.

Caduceus snakes wrap about my pen
and whisper rhymes softly in my ear.
Rising laughs echo down the trail,
a man dashing to his next delivery.

Light feet dancing forward,
hand whirring from line to line
and his eyes posted firmly to
the nights sky,
The stars singing his Siren song.