A passage
Once
Engulfed by an invigorating
Sea of pitch
Now transformed
By the ceaseless streaming of sand
To a cavernous crypt
Harassed by light unwelcome
Dank from the runoff
Of stagnant pools
Of thoughts outworn.
Cracks and crevices obscure
A multitude of doors -
          Each with its own black sea
          All but one with their own dank caves.

I search my pockets for clues gathered along the way -
Reclusive bits of knowledge
That burrow deeper to avoid my grasp.
The slow ones I reach
And they unwillingly reveal their prize
Shrinking some doors, enlarging others.
My choice is more limited now
But still unclear.
This is the final choice
And I know I must choose carefully.
I muster all my courage and open a door
Instantly recognizing the fulfilling blackness
Of a thousand other doors I have chosen.
I step forward . . .
          And hope.

You turn on the music,
The tv,
And the radio;
To scare the silence away.
You’re scared that it will separate you from you.

You cling to the fear like a dying atheist,
Unsure what there is to come.
You are too busy living as a child,
And an old man.
You are running away from you.

You are being chased by your ghost,
Followed by the echo of the future and the past.
Body degrading in a crypt,
Below your carpet.
The smell wreaks of the death of you.

The vacuum of your mind is ******* you in.
You ask the person in the pool,
“Where is the person I recognize?”
The person asks the question too.
Your thoughts have become you.

Terrified of the life I live,
Looking for a way out.
I’m forgetting how to live.

As I try to find my way,
To the life I seek to claim,
I’m forgetting how to live.

The crypt is one thing I see,
A mirror that reflects me.
One that lives is one who hates.
One that died is one love waits.

Upon the hilltop
Far over the golden horizon
Where the sun peeks out
From behind the blue crystals
Lining the cloudless sky,
There sit gray
Obelisks, towers of fractured stone
And gleaming silver flowers
That chant the distant melodies
Of those who lay below the grass.

The obelisks line in circles
And weep silently for what age
Has brought upon their faces;
Moss and cracks, dirt upon bouquets,
Names weathered down to pebbles
Vast plains of unturned soil.

At nightfall, winds break
Upon the hilltop's gates
And send forth siren calls
That plead for silent harmonies
Somewhere deep underground,
Below the grasses, below the tombstones
That rise and fall like waves
That sit silent, immobile,
As time strikes its silver chisel
Upon the forgotten markers of those
Who have been locked
Inside its ticking crypt.