Litmus papers fall like leaves
barren woods, skin below the bark
exposed legs shed of greaves
purer nature stirs below the dark
tend to imagining new colors while the old world bereaves

Ice on membranes crackling, creaking like an old house
with new bodies within it, none dare utter a prayer to ghosts once there
creating a haunting conscience, guilt crawling 'round the brim like a louse
these tales can't bury the memory, chasers to the chancery, scoffing at the skullduggery presiding over this trial in equity

With new thoughts through it, plodded and frigid shoes mark the marble under the mare
to speak to the rest, whose malnourished spirits' and flesh hang from their bones, clinging with nary a care
this palace-cove whose palisades are pitfalls, sinking dirt and feelings, all lines entangled snare for reeling,
in retreat flesh amalgamations bellow their hoarse call, broken things begin to crawl
one unblinking, all-seeing eye in clay and mud, servants gleefully accompanied
artificial artifices spewing from their orifices, sacrificial bones for dice, reborn to dedicate themselves twice to the ruler of all touched by windfall
all the rain stings to touch, burns to drink, all creatures move at the speed of one herd in a stampede
clouds all move uniformly, each the same shape
trim and proper, primp as a moth's evening cape

Rocks that hang like metaphors for swords pointing down all show,
the ineffectual weeping of centuries, this world of caves has come to know
day and night cycle the same, even time to each all year,
and the eye turned inside, stacked atop its counterpart sheds a tear
for the surface sees mountains are headstones, each for one moment of woe
this colossus sows despair, pinpoint accurate and slow,
a garden of edicts and a veil, the world turtle's movements sew
laws applied to the wild magicks unexplained and defined, bind the eyes to mortal time and so,
mesmerizing until blind and without sensation, the only interest or love, fades until it's gone,
now the only interaction is an internal, infernal reaction to resist madness in grief, to find grace in closing both sides, both eyes, and letting go.