Once More, It Was Morning

Where even light falls dark to morning, it is dawn:

He is the day and bird chirpings, awake he hears

dew falling in the passing of the shade and yawns

a song along the singing of his flighty peers:

Morning’s chorus made. A morning for becoming

Something, after his last evening’s ceiling plaster

Turned to glass-like alabaster, light reflecting

Too bright to sleep, instead thoughtful night the caster

Called on the perceiver to, “consider matters,”

For after evening and days’ done, what remains unwon?

“Everything, it’s only the beginning,” shatters

“Is it worth my time?” Direction fills to clatter.

It exhausts his love lost sleep to work, fumes

And runs on little more, but he smiles for the sun

At least the day is warm. Feeling now he has room,

He kicks his feet upon a stool and sipping runs

Through cups of three until he smoked instead of steamed.

Alert, awake, those mild shakes, he stands, returns

To a makeshift office-closet where the day seized

Chair-locks the body melancholic, and type earns

A thought for folly, perhaps expectation’s saved

By stepping through a stonéd gate. These flower weeds

Unmaintained, but beautiful in their unearned praise

are life made selfish asks still the same of passing ways.

“Will there be tics to watch the hours fly, I fear,

Every minute’s passing year, or will the will

Fall short of ear to die a life I could not hear?”

Breaking dishes on the matter, his shaking stills

Despite his fast remaining thought he prays anxious,

In pause his smoking, this manifest of hoping.

He keeps at bay these awful thoughts, daze lunged noxious:

“What a happy spot,” yet he frowns for his reeling

From this failing to maintain a thought for “then what’s”

Lost direction sends an unconfused confession:

heaven will not cut a space for grace, ‘stead rebuts

with a “why” followed “are you here to die?” he puts:

“It’s like I’ve swallowed glass.” Shedding feelings, weaker

turns him toward a future made of windowpanes,

Defenestrates his smiles grim tossing lighters,

To the wind, but breezes blowing grassy brain:

Pulled weeds leave a stain. Sighing in his weakness fraught

he calls for slapping soles of shock, and takes the door

and twists the lock, “Where do I go?” Some hell he sought.

“Fuck this train of thought.” Then the light-inspired whore

Took scissors to the sheering scores to see sanguine,

Roses for flowers grow in fields of thorns. Green plucked

He sucks on fingertips, iron blossoms endorphins

Pricks to set streams of drips, smearing the doors open.

It was quieter than expected, yet carpet

Long and red beset a silent expectation:

a demon’s coronation. Ahead he could guess

the path to take without any hesitation

made for doors astride his walking pace fell away

by numbing grace: pursuits directing downward still,

where is the crown of windowsills? Losing the day

in the dark, further forward carpet marched, where will

is wary of the path that takes him from the grass.

Smelling scents of fresh trim, followed then takes him

Further in, before the carpet turns thread to ash

The hallway opens every step sweetened by gas.

Where he lost all motivation that might keep him

From mastication, the gas that filled each nostril

Notes each thoughtless pleasant toke. Empty he sins

A message wrote, “myself, myself,” a goat himself wills

Himself considered by himself, unhurt, excepting

Coughs of pleasure stain with sin’s residue of gain

Ungained, for other than that feeling further thing

He could not find a reason. Stopping in those plains

Of ash he found his thought and asking why it passed

Donned a mask to best save him from this journey’s well

Of smoke, ash and asphodel though sweet, smelling grass,

Hope it quells, “Keep walking,” breaks his spell. “What comes next?”

He questions, vision creeping borderless tear-filled

Weeping leaves him lost and so tree-seeking, he finds

A willow passing time. Back becoming bark’s grey scales

He looks about the asphodel embracing time

By yoking years, each moment he forgot to hear

Found there a rustle listened. Breezing blows the clouds

About, “greys on beauty greys,” remarks bark-born fear,

Still sitting in the storm, to live in worlds of shrouds:

“Well it’s certainly not everything,” minds his wipes,

At least the tears flush ash from sight, and in that breath

Those bloodshot eyes long burned and bruised, but gaining sight

Of beauty in fields of hell, flowers ever might.

Fortified in leaning, he picks a path believing

That despite clouds’ peaceful pause, he’s becoming lost.

Taking willow thanking time his downward walking

Mind leaves circles, footsteps’ printing finds in the frost

“What does the future cost?” Sighing, he guesses, “more”

Lifting self up off the floor where his one look back

faced forward grim grimaces to grin. Quick flowers

break away, pressing soil’s ash decays to cracks

of clay in muddied strides, “I want to save my mind.”

A demon giggles at his back, startled, turning

nothing finds but a guess of tricks defined by the kind

of the passing time. Doubtful further down he winds.

Softened loam steps as hands comb cattails’ along,

The riverbed. Nearly gone, long dead trickles said

Nothing, save for souls bereft, finds a current strong

Across the length of stream supposes… instead red,

Glows black, casting light as shadows might, with grown fear

For what he’ll find moves deeper in the darkness. Crept

All but blind he listens, for the water rears ears

Filled with the sound of splashes falling, louder, steps

Take him to this calling, one more movement falling.

Shouting he can hear himself echo off a cliff,

He yells to find the pool of the damned, calling things

“Leave yourself among our reeds of quiet stallings.

“How heavy does that weight you bare, becoming something,

wastes the air, you are what you always will and were,

A high you could have aimed for instead of nothing.”

Wet submerged, he holds his breath, “save my lungs impure”

He says and kicking lifts him to the stonéd shore,

“My god, my bones are sore.” Wetless eyes show a glow

Bouncing off the walls below, fog replacing smoke,

He knows, his soaking mask will fail to stow the show

Of this demon’s lair, “I will make this fog my air.”

And breathing deep, a ghastly fair he pays the toll,

Knocking wide his mind’s eye blind, coughing echoes ware

“I must become!” shouting fear, ground-born hands he stares.

A gripping in shore’s dust, arises, fog consuming

Mind disguises fear for chewing nails long eaten

“Only the quiet’s keeping.” Drop for drop, dripping

Plops of hell’s water’s drying off, his soles feel beaten

Near journey’s end, this chasm made a friend. Bye-ward,

He nods to his baptism after he listened,

To the trapped praying they may press upon the shore:

“Nothing for nothing, if not for time, wouldn’t sin

These lives of mine, but longéd live these eighty years

Each without fear?” They steer, far from direction’s end

“I do not wish to go again,” and so instead mindless clears

something for invisibles: “Nothing is our cheer.”

Long abating breath, expressed, his tears joined the men

Who bred, “Damnation’s given love suggests a bed,

Where I may rest my head and live unto the dead,”

Recalling his room’s ceiling’s emptiness and said

“There is not future waiting,” posits, remember

Office closets melancholic aforementioned

Alabaster, beautiful, perhaps, but after

Evening’s pseudo sleep where will and hope hold tension

Locking boys in a circle’s motion spin to smoking,

There is no doubt that hoping will leave some matter,

Only if the man grows faster than his need for ending

Burns, stupid claims failure to make waking winning.

Hands embracing finger-tips steps toward his wits

He grips, knuckles whiting in that brighter colour

Blood removed for his clenching’s power, readied sets

A stutter. In gulping words, he steadies valour:

“Fate awaits the man who takes candor as a state”

He states, fearing prospective hours’ yet unseen

Trembles cover “Could have been”, keeper of the gate,

He stands the end of hands. Little comes from betweens.

No sober man considers trees, and yet to face

Each moment’s passing sought each too much for asking

Thought: Forgiveness: the march of hours’ showered pace

Escapes continuity in its splashing grace…

There were no words for waiting, then, pushed opening

The door began, a creaking of the stones echoed

Casting calls below, demonic actors’ turning

Shadows travelled with him since the meadow’s billow,

All blown dry by a gust that showed empty stairs

Of stone. Slapping in a heavy mind he cleared strides

Two steps at a time. “Awake the snake” sandals faired

Squelching every step far ‘til, second door aware.

White painted wood the brass knob bears, fragility

In all its airs, except one principal it wears

upon the floor. Engraved, “It is yours,” breathing reads,

he whips toward that faceless speech as the beast leaves.

Black stared back once again, but silence broke before

The door slammed at his back once more. Whirling, knob grabs

The lad, “I’m done with being had.” Through the portal

He feels a sort of battle scream, his silence nabbed

The sound of screeching, as the painted door eked

He was expecting demons. Instead, no evil

Joined the dark, just moonlight sung a silent sight

Where silver gleaning paints of light from the sill’s

Revealing stacks of mugs and books, and his own trap of

a decision made: reproachful roach reapproached

his haze of ash and grass. Is this an end to love?

In knowing answers, the question became too rough.

“It’s more than just a cough.” Sitting on the bed aside,

A mild-mannered set of eyes recognized a choice

To make, “This battle you have fought,” it states, “can’t die

Until decision’s made for your direction’s vain poise

Requires more than noise. No more, ‘let me make ends’

No more, ‘nevers’ once again, you have begun,

And it’s okay, to feel fear for endless days spent

Fearing living is not life’s last question. You run

Risk for miles when you sin in past decisions.”

These shaking words had left their mark, the boy was stunned

By the devil’s heart, “Why help me through these days’ sin?”

“My friend,” they smiled, “describe to me a demon.”

In lights’ turning, erased the faceless mild gaze,

Subsiding hating into sadness when his room

Left him alone again. What keeps silence away?

What stays the everyday? How might empathy move

Outward exclusive, this inward look’s abusive

might calls on him to blind. Silent home, none awake

he knows not a soul would take a judgment livid

throne of hate, he occupies that place. Papers quake

in his grasp considered leaves of grass filtered tight

the moments of this life. Uncertain knows the stakes

and stares into glass ceiling’s plastered sober light

Reflecting by the moonlit plight, “Only one more night.”