The Grave of Stolen Time

In the ice cold kingdom
of my own quiet-drawn death,
I woke in the black cradle
of my ill-begotten breath.

Gone were starry-eyed revels
to the grave of stolen time,
which took back every minute
I had once considered mine.

In the wind I heard the bones
of a snapping dance of dreams,
played to reel about my ears
with ravaged raven screams

of the lost ones come before me,
the ones I thought were gone.
But here they’d all been waiting,
in the kingdom all along.

Down to the river run of
shattered wings and wist,
I wandered on my broken legs
and there I did insist

that the river run away for me.
I had no life to lose.
I listened to crowing violins
as my own soul diffused.