Canto Del Morto

In the center of life's vain struggle - I

Awoke - as if from a dream, the joy and

Essence of youth wholly lost and gone.

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Crouching in the dim confines of winter's

Weary shadow, thoughts of spring fade away -

Soiled by the cruel echo of failures past.

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Weakened by exhaustion and despair, no

Memory can revive the vibrancy

And emotions of a now distant prime.

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Former dreams mock the divide between who

I thought I was and who I am, corrupting

Each decision of my lingering life;

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My sins visited on the innocent,

My guilt passing in perpetuity;

These legacies will outlive memory.

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Hope's bright radiance, which once trickled fair

Through twisted passes, holds little promise -

Hostage to lies shielding a stony heart.

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I long for death, like a wraith wandering

Aimless in a darkened wood, the pathway

To rest lost in an endless, tangled maze.

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Youth's fleeting sweetness fades to frozen white,

My feeble flesh - a wheezing emptiness -

Whispers in solemn silence, this is death.

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How terrifying to imagine my

Being surrendered to non - flesh slowly

Drained of breath, humanity and purpose.

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How concrete and urgent death becomes when

You think, rather than feel, each joyless day

Steeped in empty and worthless ritual.

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A favored few defy the odds, somehow

Finding wisdom and understanding where

I failed to discern the pathway to truth.

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They, unlike me, will die content, passing

Virtue before vice to fortunate heirs -

Choosing service to others before self.

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They find meaning in life that selfishness

Has long denied me. I am alone, and

Without counsel, faced by trackless wasteland -

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Asking one question again and again:

Why is it so hard to choose well? Frozen

At life's final crossroad, I cannot choose -

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Choice forsaken to despair descending

Quietly - like December snow - the pathway

To lasting happiness lost forever.

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Turning fearfully rearward, I follow

My heart - suddenly bounding brightly like

A leopard across the dark forest floor -

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Leaping memory to memorial,

Chasing the elusive moment in time

When hope was lost, banished forever.

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But at each crucial juncture I find only

A younger and still tortured self, living

Outside life's proper boundary markers -

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Merely looking on, frightened, passive, as

Events and life spun out of my control.

Weighed down by shame, I recoil in horror -

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Let me remember no more! The forlorn

Images flicker on and hinder me so,

Pushing me further and further backward -

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Retreating into the shadowy past.

My life era upon epoch unwinds:

Children now departing home one by one -

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Old Glory - solemn folding, the last day

I wore a soldier's green, our youngest child

Marching serenely and then the elder -

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Pomp and Circumstance echoing dimly,

Abandoning home for war - my children

Outgrowing their awkward adolescence;

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Hypnotic memory moves from youth to

Toddler, moving rearward from post to post -

Crossing and re-crossing the wide blue sea.

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But at each remembered station, feelings

Absent, numb and constipated, my mind

Was preoccupied by concern for self;

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I see what I had seen at all points past;

A stranger untouched by lives lived 'round him,

A man of regrets - knowing only loss.

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There a dark betrayal appears, facing

Me down, like a fierce lion in the path,

The crooked choices of my life exposed -

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Littered by failure and timidity,

Sown with the bane of empty promise.

Here my reminiscence finally halts -

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Moving neither forward nor rearwards, but

Frozen helplessly between unhappy

Remembrances and destructive desire.

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The pang of primeval lust revives - the

Ancient cause of many men's enslaving -

Her alabaster glory reappears.

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My flesh stirs with old longing, like a wolf

Gaunt and famished, dreadfully craving still

to slake my thirst at her altar -

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I won't repent all consequence be damned!