The good man points his needle

to a sky of torn linens,

smiling in the face of all the pain

—— on the horizon ——

the coward waived his bloodstained

white flag o’er the eyes of the weeping sun.

_Where do you and I fit into it all? _

Insanity is a plaything in the hands of paper skulls, cheering with twirled dress,

pikes lifted beneath the tongues of would-be poets — they’ll harvest the words - reaping that which they’d never dreamed to sow, and taunting our tomorrow.

_“Here! I’ve been a fool! But no more!”_

_ The light omits, its soul shrinking away. _

_ “Surely God wouldn’t send a poet to hell!”_

_ I hate my mind as it retorts. _

The cold man covets the one encased in ash, helping a child lift the cross — one he’d not touch out of love and out of rage. He lets the breath out - the hell follows.

The child whimpers and falls,

his heart speaking volumes,

_“I never belonged here anyway.”_