shadows fall on shadows, aghast at their own darkness
times keep falling out of place, surprising themselves,
trailing numberless atrocities like the dust of a comet
sweeping ominously across a shrouded, weeping planet

the forces are arrayed, the engines started
words have been spoken, in earnest, in fear, in foreboding
the percolating matrix of desire is abroad
spewing the churned filth of age upon age

grasping through coated vision, sickly sweet with unknown blood
mine? or is that just the fading of words in the rain
a forgotten calligraphy of music and coincidence
swept into the tragic dust of memory

we are all the friends of death
we have slipped our milky white hands in his
threaded our fingers into the dying bones of the future
and now hold on for dear life

know then benevolence, you royal heir, the polarity of spirit
awakening with the sound of inversion upon inversion
every coming forth speaking through white knuckles
shaking your being, lighting it on fire

death isn’t waiting for you
you are the one who shall transform
you are the one to phosphoresce in embrace
while all the world casts off from your shore

unshackle your breath
unmoor yourself from the known
take wing, rise up,
you are the gift