And then I found myself

locked up with a key

hidden behind sorrow & grief.

I thought it'd be hard,

to set myself free,

But all I had to do,

was speak greatly of me.

That graveyard next to the highway doesn't look like it's been visited in years and I never realized I could relate so much to something so lifeless. If the consciousness is dead then so is the body (where the mind goes the man follows and when the man follows he does not understand why), but I don't know why I'm still walking, talking like the questions make sense and my words don't give it away. Maybe this is selfish, maybe I'm desperate, maybe I'm seeing now that there's nothing left. All I know is that all Atlas can do is laugh when we approach the apex and fall before we can touch the sky. Man is prone to evil as the sparks fly upward but maybe sparks have nothing to do with it.

The gray graves provided

footing for my strolling

for the earth's blackened sheen

slipped and slipped beneath my feet

No moonlit beams unveiled

the names inscribed beneath,

for fog pervaded all the air

while rime turned stone to sleet

My trio of bells mimicked

past knelling and chimed blithely

while I tripped and snapped twig

cavorting lithely in silent din

Fallen branch, bough and snow,

ice-encrusted wreathes for bones

fell about my feet crunching

in the cemetery hallows

Epitaphs and paragraphs

frozen petals and obelisks

still in that wintry silence

of sailing wraiths in snowdrifts

Countless headstones bloomed

between sepulchers and crypts

their entrances chained against

daft fools such as myself

Every step a closer glance

to insights I nearly divined

beneath a starless sable sky

closer than ever to my eye

Sorrow could not be wrought

of such peace, so I thought

as I wound and wound around 

endlessly expanding grounds

Curious that I chose

to entreat neglected tombs

to accompany the phantoms

patrolling icicle vestibules

for I knew not a soul

as a mere walk and stroll

escalated into the cadaverous

celebration of those forgotten

within their black frosted vaults,

whom joined me in my cemetery waltz. 

follow the stream down

through the forest,

walk upon the mush

and wounded soil,

cut slow by blades of rain,

full of fish

that swim in blood,

where hesitation

becomes a prophecy,

where laughter

frightens crows,

and none of us will

be strong enough

to break the ground

that holds us,

but we'll sure as hell

carve a path

through the tombstone-trees,

all waiting,

to be remembered.

all failing,

to touch the sky.