There is a hollowness: shape without form. Hallowed and concentric circles splayed against a canvas Deep red, veins in hand with epitomes and documents of what has ceased to be. What was leased to me...? A dying light in fragile arms? An art amidst your victory march for me to chase; for me to run? For me to torment you and I until we fall again; Amidst a calm and cooling breeze, Amidst our spiritual dis-ease as our shadows stretch across the land? This is the twilight of my very oeuvre, or so I fear. I fear the end is near, as though time itself were befit by grace to crawl and to walk, To seethe as fit with entropy. But, surely this is but a heinous vision? The order is so very apparent, still. Order out of Chaos... I feel as though I've fallen short. The myriad of misanthropes I've slain and had reborn, The rising tide of shedded skin that by my hands was wrought, The countless names and faces of a destitute and witless being all discarded by the Way. O', what a pity it may be to balk at one's mortality For within but a blink all is naught but dust and ash, Soil and smoke, oil and water, And the whispering of the winds As they propagate the flames. "Still, a temple stands amidst the smoulders, does it not? Did you not think that the Pilgrim's Way would be fraught With the trials and the tests of your hopes and fears laid bare upon the rocks? What great cowardice is on display, with your writhing and your self-dismay! Are you a man, are you a mouse? Or are you but a foolish child Who's come to cry out in the middle of the night? Or is it that you're divine? Born to live and born to die as the waxing and the waning of the tides. Have you come to cry? Have you come to revel in the imposition of your Exile? Tell me, Pilgrim... What is it that you seek? Because it's all so simple. Can't you see?" O', what are the chances That I would come to see with such great ease? O', so blind and weary, perspective seems so out of reach. O', what are the chances That I would come to keep a realisation held so near and deep for more than a day? I might find balance. I might find ecstasy. But I won't. So as it transpires, I'll go the only way I know, To the sea, to the song. I shall be lured unto the rocks to fall and to fail, To seek to no avail. This dance, I'll do no more, Of time's unending waltz. I've sought to no avail, I have tried and I have failed. So, this dance I'll do no more, Of time's unending waltz.

With time's passage, though, what worth would such things be Without a pen with which to write, Nor a voice with which to speak If I found you gazing back at me As the second night descends? For time steals us all away one day, does it not? It robs us of the things we want to hold onto the most. And believe me when I say That it lies in wait for no man or woman to make their haste. Just as easily, a thousand years would go to waste. The work is all the same before the eye of God, Is it not? Perhaps it is the plot I've lost? Perhaps I've lost my Way? At this point are they not the same? Am I not treading the One and only Pilgrims' Westward Way To do the workings of the One and only Thing? Have I not come this very way in search of higher things at stake? I have seen it manifest, I have seen it ache, I have been the squander, and I have been the mirth As their eyes avert from heavens sent to guide them to their birth. As they foster their impurity and mock the very Way In which the lurking and the murmuring Shall speak from night to day Will they choke upon their poison and speak the poison word While not manifesting the purity they sought. O', what a shame, O', what a tragedy it is for these words to fall upon deaf ears Doomed to never reach their subject. O', what a fool am I to have laboured and believed In such petty human things, When it was clear from the beginning; That we are westward souls? I pray the night might take me. I pray the night might take me westward bound. To confront who we are, to confront the shadow self, I pray the night might take me. If I must die a thousand deaths and die a thousand more As nameless, faceless, restless men Who nightly reach deaths door Then pray this lantern lays still lit to adorn my very soul. She told me once... "This is what happens in the mountains Where the light can't reach." So I go westward, westward bound.

And so as darkness fell on the first of days and the skyline opened wide. The Heavens in their oblique majesty did speak of an old and holy grove. Enumerate in starlit forms how the trees came to speak in tongues And what it is they say through a conduit of horned form. "O', lowly Pilgrim! How dare thee have the gall to seek My graven image, stead and swift among the grass and leaves?" Know not of malice, O', benefactor! Know no pretense at my side! "Know not of where it is you came from, Know, Pilgrim, Know of these three things: The Sword that is not a Sword The Sound that is not a Sound The Face that is not a Face These boons, I give to thee, O', Pilgrim To light the way home!"

So, here we find ourselves again And one might think it's such a pity To be standing on the razor's edge No, how Occam would be ashamed Or so the dreams appear to say Oh see, they tell of numb and wretched men Who've strayed far from the path And they tell of nameless, faceless men Whose every detail shrouds itself in myth And with poeticism, with insight, and with tragic glee Oh, what does this speak of me If I look on so curious and unappeased? Would such a thing be read and understood so easily? If it was to be, then surely it would be This surely is a dichotomy So prevalent and irrevocably elegant So I've come to see Then, why does it haunt me so? What agency is mine to bring to a union with the pre-ordained? What have the fates to gain from a destitute and witless being? Long discarded by the way So is this a treatise or is it a game? Is this pleasure or is this pain? Or is there something more elusive? Perhaps this could be destiny But as long as I draw breath I'll not let it make a fool of me Lest I wander to the gallows And hang until I'm dead I've seen the mountain in my dreams And I shall seek it 'till the end So beneath the sight of God Shall I forever march in deep into the pines And find my place in the all In the everything, might I just overcome But what of you, my dear? Oh, what of you my love? Oh, how I'd hate to see us part But I must deceive you again I'm sorry, but the voice that calls me rings inside my head It pains me so, the visions torment amidst my fears and sins But nothing wagered, nothing earned And for this, I leave a rose beside your head A crown of thorns