Pariah
I should be the blacked-out name on every list
Scuttling in shadow and depth
Friends with only the question
"What led me to this?"
Pockets empty, save the fee for Charon
Little flesh to miss
Stowed transgression in the churning of oceans
And acid assonance to cover the traces left
Heaving brimstone, the words tumble out
Sulphuric retch
Oh, how the frailty calls me back
Take it
Take it back
Take it
Take it back
Take it back
Take it
Between the conception and the creation
Between the emotion and the response
Falls the shadow
"Life is very long"
In self-made shackles
Draw up plans for greater things
Taunt foundations to crumble
There is hope for all but permanence
Of cruel wind and oceans
Of famine and plague
Ring the songs that will tell of the empire I build
And its certain decay
Of fleeting rapture and intrigue
Of a scarecrow's lament
Of the cold, callous eyes of debtors awaiting the rending of flesh
I crumble, I crawl
Bent double under my soul
The repulsive weight
The awkward shape I made to serve as penitence
I wither away
With all that shall bear my name
As round Ozymandias' dead monuments
"The lone and level sands stretch far away"
Not with a bang, but a whimper