Old selves die easily.
They whine their superseded demands
And the winds of change
Blow buildings down on them.

Or slide into a warm bath of contentment
And gasp out their last as the water drains,
Marooning them like bathtoys of despair.

One has expired in my arms.
His face turns to smoke
Like a ghost beginning to form.

Tenderly, I drag him to the backyard
To hide him with the others.
I mark where they’re buried
So oblivion knows where to find them.

These words...
They traverse the fine line between earth and sky.
They dwell not, surface-deep in the dirt.
They be haloed not, as the chorus of heaven.

They're just murmurs that swim intangible.
Like reticulated wisps of smoke.
Incapable of materialising...
Or take definite forms on their own.

They only await to be carefully selected,
rearranged and harnessed into a jar...
Before being sealed infinite with a title.

Be quiet and still...
For you will hear them.
Milling and floating in the silence
that exists between your heartbeats.

Listen close...
For they are fragments of you
and the universe.
They're thoughts and feelings that come awake
as you slumber.

Awaiting to be selected...
Awaiting to be rearranged...
Awaiting to be harnessed...

By you,
the conduit with a pen.

The awful daring of a moment’s surrender
Which an age of prudence can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed

- T.S.Eliot