The circling ominous birds of thought
And I wait and wait
And bite my own tongue and sigh
Encroaching on thick held ground
Moldy with the blood of long memory
And caress my own wrists and despair
When and when and if?
And can I not love dead grass?
The dark distance spanning lone wings
And I close my own eyes and weep.

was it I that unraveled your soul
and clipped the strings that held you and your mind?
did I break you and stand hovering upon ruinous planes
and smile or weep?
did I crush the shards tinkling from your black gaze
and shatter the sunlit notes and
make gravel under my steps?
was I destroyer and ruiner and demon
who sent sober children fleeing to darkness to cry and burn?
with you curled into rounded stone and still and soundless
your breath a barely thing
and I brash and clumsy
treading muddy harm over gentle lines.
was it I that unraveled your soul?

Its crushing weight, bleak and paralyzing
Pray for sickness, hope for death
And the black release of cares
To be unwanted
Blissful and unseen
And faceless in the eyes
of lovers and children

The rings of stone and the scorched sphere
collude and mock
from their perch in the West,
and I am dread and wonder
and dry as death.
A stone myself under the stunted moon
and the pit of the sky.
Flying into future.
Funneled along the dark path.
With the sinew spray on my face and feet.
How can this be
under the small circles of the point
and her grinning ashy ball?

The long gentle arcing dome of the sky and wind in my face and I sigh the deep sigh of only memory.
The long long drop of your resolve.
The cool in my skin as it was when you hung in the sky and despaired and I and you wept and loved the wind.
And we only remember.

The ring I placed upon her olive hand
I found along my travels long ago.
An intricately fashioned golden band
Of intertwining serpent heads. And so,
Enamored of the ring, I spent my wealth
And wits, and youth, possessing it at last.
Not caring for my fortune, life, or health.
Not knowing of its dark and woeful past.
And so to she who waited as I rode
And roamed across the Earth, I gave the thing.
A symbol of our passion I bestowed,
As on her patient hand I slid the ring.
But when the wicked jewel touched her skin,
Her body shook, her eyes burned as a flame.
An ancient horror rose from deep within,
And brandishing a carving knife she came
And leapt upon me, stabbing with the blade.
Deep in my gut she drove the deadly knife.
I pulled it out, a desperate thrust I made.
I slashed towards the ring, but struck my wife.
She shrieked, her body stiffened in surprise
I saw my bride become herself once more.
The dark of countless ages left her eyes,
Which fixed the scarlet pool upon the floor.
There lifeless, oozing from within the band,
The fingers from her pale and ruined hand.