When the space no longer holds
any source of joyful balm
by the virtue of parley
or the spread of beauty’s hand
one or the other may dispense
the sorrow felt on most days
if only this were the truth
when the margins become despair

sounds recede as if on cue
pulling back to other fools
that have need of the voice
to command the waking joke
so many plans to talk about
important matters made of ash
waiting for the winds of time
to disrupt babble’s tongue

the colors fade bright to gray
the sliding spectrum denying bliss
tumbling towards nothing more
than the pit consuming all
no light escapes depression’s place
reducing life to shadowy plains
no longer are the living seen
when dead are viewed with jealousy

now deaf and dumb without recourse
this void denies what most have
even though I seem to stand
in the presence of other men
there I’ll exist for a time
until the margins take my life
claiming what beauty owned
before the space no longer held.

© 2018. Sean Green. All Rights Reserved. 20180730.