My soul→seethes, burns
                roils,
This vanity this self-deceit
stripped of all meaning
The noise of the teeming crowd
as wounding as the dead silence

We sing: (and the echoes, ceaseless echoes)
    like the sound of the waves on the sea
This forsaken memory

I cannot bear.

Awful gravity, enveloping silence
to be so empty. to be so empty
the soul shivers, quivers, rages in despair

I am cold.

And the silence is indifferent.

I did not think that Death would come so slowly
like dripping water upon granite.
one day then the next.
inexorably boring a fatal hole into my
crushed + splattered heart
ruptured + blasted
mangled + immolated

                                like rotting road-kill
                                infested with maggots

This ichor, this poison, this aching
This grievous aching.
I know now that there will be no happiness for me in this world.
By God’s Grace, let there be some token of joy in the next.