Lurking around corners — on groggy-doggy, laudanum-lit
gas lit nights, whispering death came to this age of the machine,
he has much drink taken, he’ll be dead soon.
Never mind.

See the tender white crosses-row-on-row
so-many windswept nights of swirling snow.
creaking branches catch the whiff of Lady Fortune’s
croaking of a pleasing freezing breeze,
and pleased, I am, immeasurably,
I am the ghost who sells memories.

More fool me!
old Lady Darkness — with her fondest acolytes: death, birth, darkness
creeps through this midnight’s feast of shame
on a drear black night, over and over again;
I possess gross infirmities of mind,
sometimes reminding me of the arrival of Poe’s
coal-black shiny raven, sometimes not

Her soul and her heart leave me gasping
like a man in icy water, as the false lucidity of life
begins again to sink in deep-black night, when sentient beings’ grieve,
hold their tongues and cling to the merest tincture of belief
that they will sleep a million years or more.

Still, lurking around corners — on groggy gas lit nights, 
whispering death comes, again, to this age of the machine.
See the tender white crosses-row-on-row
Oh! so-many windswept nights of swirling snow.
creaking branches catch, again, the whiff of Lady Fortune’s
pleasing freezing breezes, no longer pleased, I am, immeasurably.
More fool me! Old Lady Darkness — with her fondest acolytes: death and birth and thoughts of these conspire on drear black nights. I seek to possess all the gross infirmities of mind and soul and heart and sinew to leave me gasping as the false lucidity starts
of unkept promises and broken hearts
on deep-black nights, when a a sentient being’s grief
holds her tongue, sings a lyrical song and clings to this merest tincture of belief.

?si=gEtCABtBDIwYZSAS