All this time

All this time

So many footfalls

The broken veins

Of a chaotic life

Charting a precarious progress.

The holes in my shoes

Do not bring me closer

To the earth

Everybody sinks down

Into the ground.

With or without permission

There is leakage

Of the soul

A diminishing

Of strength as the years turn.

The weakening of resolve

To continue

Runs in parallel

A dark passage

Through the catacomb

Stretching from beginning

To end.

Scaborous old crones

Parchment priests

Scenes of crucifixion

Dotting the skyline.

At the forefront

Of my dismay

Is a hollow of uncertainty

Nothing good comes

Of old-time religion.

The guilt of given sin

This brand of the devil

Is not mine

But a cypher

Of past lives,

When to rebel

Was to question legitimacy.

The soul of Patriarchy

Was a given thing

Cut it out

It is a stain on man’s integrity.

In the midst of terror

There is time enough

To put a foot down

Every page is written

In the blood of the fallen

Never is it stilled.

It bleeds

In the reading

So we might learn

To live on

In search of truth

And a soft landing.