One and the Same

(Photo Credit: Creative Commons)

(http://stockarch.com/images/objects/young-boy-unlocking-door-7249)

Written on 02/15/13

In that place so dark

Surrounded by water and stone

And bellows puffed so low that the coals barely stay warm

And swarms of smoke and ash

Burning the sight of no known soul

Where once men were alive now they foster those shores

Lore once said to place coins upon their eyes

To be spied by ferryman whence the crow flies

Now to casket and depths of a watery grave

Save the immortal cries whilst the brave stay unpaid

Lain and slain for worries not their own

Sown and reaped like a harvest gone to mold

Crowned so loudly that the deaf hear those tones

"Here ye, here ye!" the chorus once spoke

To listen as a burden to the fathoms of a ghost

And toast to all the courage for those who pass beyond

Long heard the stories even after the last line is lost

And tossed aside and asunder

Thunder like fire burns under the rubble

So terrible a sound as one has ever heard

Absurd as the mourning widow whose husband laughs with girth

And birth of a dying man who has seen all before

Seven scores when only once since they've been to the seashore

Yet beckoned still by the seafloor to sever

And yet never fill the hole in their soul

Cold as a winter night when icy grip strips flesh to the floor

And you call that bravery simplified into stupidity

Lucidity of a mind which is riddled with irrationality

So crass this idea of a mask worn by the dead

Upon their head as if to cover the naked truth of decay

So to say that even now as we stand upon the door

Cordially approached and even then only ever reached the threshold

Untold countless have bathed in blood to stand there

And here you wait patiently to twist the knob

Thump and throb beats the cavity in your chest

Yet even then you still pretend

And tend to a notion so superfluous

Is it patience that impedes you or just the desire to torture us

Those fools each one so doomed

Each and every one succumbed

And breathed the cold air in hopes of truth

Regretfully misled like a mosquito to its death

With tales of riches and lavish gifts

Lifted the pale face each one is blessed with

And sifting each speck of sand through the tides

And ride upon a beast whose purpose in never alive

To tell the tale of a memory sorely kept

To be leapt upon by some ancient curse

Loosed upon the weary and unsuspecting both

Loath to show what is never to be known

Sown into the memory of a huntsman's crossbow

So low is the intention guided by pretension

Such apprehension as one has ever felt

Nelt to the altar like some forsworn sovereign

So common as the madness which is their knowledge

Like the hedge to the garden where curiosity is harbored

Labored by the masses who each take a pass at this

Contemptuous amassed with every failure

Lured to the door which you refuse to open

Like a token commiserating where you hung your choice

And loiter about as if by some unshaken remorse

Glowering in derision which consumes your voice

Moist as a soft kiss once lost forever missed

One among the long list of lost moments of bliss

Remiss if left unsaid don't outweigh the memories betrayed

And flayed open to leave what remains displayed

So tell me now is it reminiscence or deliverance

Which hesitation presents as patience or fear

A smear of life lingering here on the floor

More or less just one part of the core

Toward which it is less of a jest

Pressed to the mold so it could be either one life or the next

Its all just pretense, no more, no less