When you kill a man,
a world dies with him.
Sunken cities lost in time
and memory
lie buried with the bones of yesterday.
Somewhere past the distance
beyond the caul of dust
lies unseen
often unthought,
a crumble of white ruins,
risen through this sinking sand.
The barren walls,
so loud for something so abandoned,
too quiet for suitable tribute.
This blank, deteriorating slate,
all that still lingers
of the dimension that was
a man.
That was the world to someone,
and made the world
for someone else.
Where life once thrived,
the halls are empty now,
the floors are bare,
so still the feet.
The ticking clock
has lost the rhythym,
time is counted here,
in incriments of dust,
degrees of shifting shade.
The echo of our knocks
on hollow walls,
the whistle of the wind
eating through
the unaltering emptiness,
the only song that plays.
The song of loss,
so loud, so pounding,
it beats its tune into our bones,
bids the heart,
resisting,
to thrum along.
It blurs
to white noise,
till you wonder if you even hear it
anymore.
I want to hear,
the sounds that came before.
Speak to me.
A world will go out of orbit,
if the worlds that balance it move away,
hurtle off into darkness,
or lose their place.
The dance is over,
save for the movements
of dumb shadows,
horny microbes and hungry bugs.
They swirl across
this lonesome darkened lot,
squatters in the silence
of your sweet shelter,
surrendered.
Oh,
the revelry has ceased,
the secret knowledge,
lost to the rest of known history,
a culture has come undone,
the spirit of the time
if it is anywhere,
it carries on
somewhere else.
All that remains is an echo,
so far
as flesh knows.
He who lived among the bones,
is lost to that world now,
a king,
abdicated,
torn down,
unknown.
And his world,
without him to oversee,
collapses without pause.
A whole universe has been blotted
from the earth,
and I wonder in my highest hope,
in my greatest doubt,
how fickle is the sky
of life?
Does he still dance there,
does he still dream,
has the world really vanished,
or has it just moved,
like Atlantis,
swallowed by a hungry sea,
hidden beneath the waves,
too deep
for flesh to reach?
Tell me, please,
there are rings
collecting in your essensce,
your consciousness,
you soul.
Tell me you and I
have other places
where we will blow like seeds,
to grow.
Say to me,
when I am strong enough,
when I am ready to dive
deep,
I will find you
living still,
just a planet out of orbit,
still turning,
sun still burning,
the moon still dancing
with your wild and restless soul,
just temporarily out
of my reach. |
Submission Name: Your Sunken Cities (Longer version)
