The spirit songs scream across wind-burned heaths Flensing the rind of my very soul Corrosive embrace comforts In an inexorable miasma of dissolution A threnody that scours with the paralyzing raptor claws Of a lifetime of unrealized purpose And it as at this point that revelation strikes With the force of a thousand driven spear-points A face etched with the lexicon of destitution Stares back through pallid, jaundiced eyes That glitter with suppressed, shrieking desperation To rend To claw away the threads of cloying carnation To force this stooped sarcophagus Into the carcass-field beneath my feet Abnegation - silence - void The only triptych I seek Yet Extant not is thy solace Within this corrupted patina of deathsoil Still the Cathedral stands tall And in those febrile shadows Hopes of centuries shrivel and die I must move on I must haul this weary patchwork of cursive limbs Through a translucent mire Endless, oppressive wake Each tread summons the efforts of a thousand scouring exhalations Inch by inch, step by step, slowing, stooping Until, like a puppet with strings severed by the scythe of embitterment A figure collapses