burn the past 

set fire to every city 

collapse every bridge 

and crush the continent itself 

seeing it sunk 

to the murky depths  

of future myth 

in this  

make it impossible 

to return 

to understand 

to allow yourself 

the reach of its clammy hands 

you've lived long enough 

under the haloes of its dim lamp light 

and in the burrows of it's darkened basements 

you've spent half your life 

wandering its streets 

and greeting the same faces  

time and again 

but now 

you've transmigrated 

through the help  

of one of your closest friends 

and all of it 

—all of it 

is at your back 

yet there is a ferryman 

waiting patiently 

with his boat & oar  

just steps away 

the glistening waters 

of the timeless currents 

leading into the past 

knocking his vessel softly 

against the dock  

on the shore 

from him, 

the mist of opium wafts 

the scent as seductive 

as the dreams that lift you 

from the flesh, nightly 

into the only rest you get 

so here you have it— 

fire or water 

the end of an epoch 

or the surrender, permanent, 

to the grounds  

where your dear friend 

—now nowhere to be found 

is sure to be walking 

but no longer talking 

in recognizable tongues 

you may yet be able to solve this. 

but you may yet, 

forget, 

again. 

the sky is reflecting  

blue in your eyes 

close them 

step into it 

burn it. 

Image: “Island of the Dead” Arnold Bocklin, 1880.