How dark the struggle, the sorrow,
The dim days of man’s persistence
Born in blood and water
To a pathless existence,
A rocky ascent through
Briars and thorns,
Fists and the forgotten
Sorrow numbed, joy mourned,
Dumb when questioned,
Deaf when told
The blessing of life is
Growing old.
Wrinkle and fade,
Ebb away, but time
Is all the gift of man.
Death, our crime,
Weighs heavy on our histories.
How dank our intentions,
Turned inward, turned downward,
Too lurid to mention
But never unknown

Until love interrupts.
How sharp the contrast
The breath of God
From now, from ages past
In deep elixir swallows
To soothe the wounds
The fears and fallows
Of fate and faithlessness.

I speak
My voice along my tongue
Shaping words, shaping sound
Expelled again by eager lungs,
But changes form and drifts to ground.

I sing
In wispy exhales
Turning to vapor, to cloud, to fog
Dense, frail
As it crawls silent.

I shout,
But only smoke and cough
The quiet wheeze of desperation
Falling down, blowing off
Words like trapped condensation

Wandering muted in the dim hours.

I write again; I smother.