The Song of a Dying Man

How wretched is a life that never ends.

Among my own Hell lies the bones and faces I’ve taken.

Molded to smile, to laugh, to cry, to dream, to live,

But never to die.

I sit amongst the fires of purgatory.

The cheeks crackle and the eyes catch spark.

Flesh gives way to bone and bone gives way to new flesh.

A new face- crying, smiling, bursting in anger, shallow in suffering, confused, afraid.

I sit as many lifeless eyes glare in shock to see what soul was living behind them.

I want to hate them.

I want to cry for them.

But who are they?

Lifeless masks of a being once loved by others?

No!

They were a charade-

The many acts within the circus we call life.

I beg Death to take me, but she only glares at my shadow.

Never into my eyes.

I am a mask to her; a mask of a never-ending sadness.

She despises it.

Here at the end of all things, I look at the last man.

I now see something I have not before.

The tender music of life.

The sweet music of death.

I now listen and hear it!

The painful music of the dying.

I ask him to sing- he replies in silence.

I beg him to sing, and still his tongue slept.

But cheerfully I urged him

To thus sing a song of his dying death,

But that it may be done slowly in agony,

And cheerfully in pain.

So I may listen to its vocals chill down my spine like the careless breeze that frosts the mighty air.

Thus he sang.

He who tip-toes in agony,

And does not run.

He who cheers in pain,

But does not cry.

He who brings me chills like that nightfall breeze.

Thus bringing the death of the dying man,

And a song of his speechless tongue.

There, the hopeless gave hope as his heart rhymed to a dying fire.

Hurry not oh wretched Dealer of Death.

For the tongue still sings

And like the embers his heart still yet glows towards a pitiful sight.

And still I dance to his rhythm and sing to his tune

- dancing and singing to the song of a dying man.