the end of the world

he sits

at the end

of the world

striving to see

something more

something

at the very least

tall and true and

immaculately full

of eternity

something

that will sooth

the angry pain

in his aging limbs

and silence at last

the terrible anguish

in his heart

John O'Groats in the Highland of Scotland

dust

the besmeared merchant sighs

his dilapidated stall shivering

even from the weight of the dust

that covers his trivial wares

useless all but for one piece

one timelessly treasured vase

facelessly reminiscent, recalling

nana’s gentle hands folding the clay

never would he have chosen

but for the direst of needs to place

her final work beneath the sun

shunned by one patron after another

a screaming child races past

a cloud of dust clinging to his heels

which kick at the angry world

with zealous determination

behind the child, lost in his clowd

an elderly woman growls, teeters

blindly rubbing her stinging eyes

as her hip collides with the stall

down it falls, beautiful in despair

down it falls, crashing to the earth

smashing a heart that had nothing

left to hope for beyond simply this

he does not scream, does not yell

does not tear at what remains

of the bedraggled gray mess strung

limply over his sweaty crown

his jowly countenance drips sorrow

into the dust of his finality

his skin cracks across brittle bones

enthroning a once proud man

as a naïve prince of fools

clinging

there is such decay

in this aging flesh

such pain clawing

through these limbs

gnawing at the fibers

of transient being

and yet we hold on

grasping at perpetuity

while gasping our last

precious promise

of certain intransigence

and desperate need

we seize at vitality

angrily breathing needles

piercing our veins

with chemical inducement

and medical murmurs

moistened with tears

with trembling limbs

we prostate ourselves

before imperceptible deities

touching coldest stones

with sweaty hands as

generations of ghosts

have done before