he met his mortality with trembling limbs
    and gnashing words
            fiercely independent
    and clutching at every loose strand
nothing was in his control

he cursed life and death
  in the same breath
because opportunity had never proven itself
         to him
and so he asked more of time

     demanded it
to bribe regret away
he lived a life unlived
but this was invisible to him
                                                   until the end

it all lay behind him now
flatlands and an apathetic sky