III (Fear)

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