I reminisce on those opulent times
for now they are memories

I look back to see the shadow
of what was once there

now gone forever

As reckless
as a bound beauty

Standing
on the edge
of eternity

God !
There is freedom
in the temptation
of the fates

One must kiss
the lips of death
to live

A man in a field walks through a storm.
Snowflakes on his eyelashes blur his vision.
A man in a study believes in snow,
believes in the truth of snow.

A man leaves traces as he walks.
His tracks ornament the field’s blank.
He meanders, doubles back, evading,
leaves imprints that the snow erases.
A man walks. The snow falls.  

In a study, a man devotes himself to snow.
He reads from the book of snow.
He composes wintry axioms.
“Snow:  Atmospheric water vapor frozen into ice crystals
that drop on a walking man’s eyelashes
or lie blank in an unwritten field.

“Snow is a conflict,
a confusion, a yearning.
Letters are desire.
Margins are melancholy.”

The storm disappears.
A man squints at blurred words,
Resumes writing,
Shaking snow from the page.

Dirt caked crust
Gives way
To layers of mantle
Above afflicted fireplace
Bearing picture frames
Bitter memories
Pride, then regret
Memento mori

I will not die here
Two tiers from hell
I feel it burning
In my core
Patiently waiting
To take me in pity
As I wish it had done
Before