The Long Night

Are you another false dawn in this endless night, 

without stars I sail blind and feel the rocks but dare not turn away, 

compelled forward like the moth, 

is that what awaits the seared wings only to fall again, and again. 

Why does evil only suck at your bones it chews at the marrow settling in deep, 

it takes the back seat, 

but it is always close whispering just over the shoulder. 

Never the same way twice, 

the gushing torrent or the drip, drip, drip; 

its price is always hidden deep in the folds where the compass only spins struggling to find its direction. 

Beginnings are delicate, soft, weak and unable to stand on their own. 

On broken legs you cannot stand, 

life’s quicksand is subtle and unforgiving never free of the past its dark brushes paint unforgiving futures’; 

to weak to end it but to strong to lie down. 

Replace life with walking undeath misplaced musings drip from the pores filling the senses with heat, 

years of living with ghosts leave the mouth crooked and tie your thoughts in knots. 

The shattered glass of the future casts off a thousand reflections where truth becomes the spear that you impale yourself upon as you wander in the perpetual gloaming.  

With sightless eyes you scan the horizon looking for what has already come, 

waiting for the darkness to settle in. 

The breath of possibility is hot on the neck with dreams of undiscovered tomorrows dancing like candy plumbs, 

a shadow stage to disappear like vapor when grasped for. 

The fool’s palace,

decorated in the hopes of the idiot 

and dreams of the moron.