locked.
sealed.
the clenched fist of stale earth is spread.
the potter's field is my soul's epitaph.
great cost.
great worth.
a price for pride.
a prayer for the passion passed.
stillborn is tomorrow.
stillborn, twisted.  decayed from inside.
and I am the painfather.  the poisoned thorn.
the gentle hand bleeds.
then the wound heals.
the flight from his sight saves only her.  he is...consumed.  
when all that lives needs more
than he has, he shall be gone.  the poet raves.
mad with pain and fire he denies himself.
deifies himself.
destroys himself.
the fire burns with deceptive coolness.
damned by lies, he has nothing.
even his soul is sold.  morbid wealth.
pennies of self-pity, paid against an old debt.
no way out.
endurance is the pattern.
pain...the thread.
memory is but mockery and madness.
madness and the axeman's dance.


copyright William F. DeVault (wfdv)