The apocalyptic shadow,
Of my eminent devastation.
My salvation,
Could not have come sooner,
By the noose,
To the box.
To the soil, and attempt to rejoin,
What I had lost.
Was she lifted?
Was she granted,
The heart of God, of any God, of any faith,
Rather than my own, for I failed?
Indeed, I failed, as was my wont.
Accustomed to failure,
And now, she lingers among rot,
As a woman,
As a soul,
As torment in its very incarnation.
What is my music?
It is death, as I see it.
What is my loss?
It was a woman, as I knew her.
What is my frailty?
My guilt, as I feel it,
What is my safety?
The suicide in an evening, guided by a dimming sun.
Oh, pain, empty yourself upon my lashed back,
Afore the pain was ever there,
Afore the lashes were ever struck to bleed,
My back; my love is gone.
And a truce was spoken,
To the nearly-open wind, and bound nothing.
Modern Romanticism 