In the Darkening Twilight

In the darkening twilight
a grimness slides down the sky,
the trod upon trod on,
the oppressors press on,
the ragged forlorn reach for some vague golden dawn
& our own sweet strictures constrict each human heart.
The shrinking visible trail before us
leads to fewer & fewer choices,
down fewer & fewer paths
through the brambles,
through these blockades of brush,
these catacombs of confusion
in the dim narrowing world around us.
In the lifeless gloom then
you stop, stop & turn,
turn & step deliberately into the shadows,
step into night's fear, its terror, its mortal hollows
wherein all your given facts, old stories, debris of the past
are frozen into scales, into a dead detritus
you sluff off along this trail
you find by feel & guessing
& the scent of sorrows
within this continent of corpses,
this endless bush of corpses whispering their silent siren call
to join them, to lie down & join them forever.
With hands pressed to your ears
you step forward, forward with what hope you may summon,
forward through this nightscape of madness,
madness, mistakes & demons;
with all the hope that you can summon,
with little other than a sack of disillusionments,
nothing left but possessions demonic,
a necrotic baggage that fits well here, belongs here;
losing even your last sad vestige of memory,
yet you walk on,
on through the darkness,
the grimness
still descending,
still discarding
dead dreams;
walking,
awaiting
the lightening morning
and a clean bright path
unto heaven.

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Chet N.