• who is it that we view
    behind a tattered screen of our grievous discrepancy?
    and what is that to which we listen
    with adulterated ears and prettily-painted bias?
    for our world, thus shamèd and bereft,
    there is naught which can be done.

    ease into strife.
    take it slow, watch as it comes apart at your fingertips:
    mass deterioration of the poetically-tragic kind.
    you know not what to say, and so you say everything.
    talking words without a meaning,
    hoping that something - one pathetic syllable - will spark a mind.
    but though your voice is raised, and so nobly intended,
    it means nothing if it falls on self-possessèd ears.

    we, the faceless mass, will shed not a tear,
    for all we can be is shackled to our pride,
    making love to vanity in a jagged, seamless midnight.
    what is there left for us to do,
    but watch and wait until the thread is cut?

    not a single scrap of regret,
    however hollow,
    do we admit, for we are kings who sit in state
    atop the crumbling stones of our ebony sepulchers.
    waiting are we, simply waiting
    for the funereal thrones to erode,
    silently, mournfully, into the sea.