I. Woe Regains My Substance

Awakening on the other side of catharsis

Returning from a coma of unknowable extent

Baffled, aghast, dumbfounded

A sort of enter scene

I repossess body, reason and sentience

My sorrow a ready mnemonic

Like bitterness wafted under-nose

I'm birthed again

Into my own awareness

That black dog and that old friend

And I begin to remember...

In place to assassinate his holiness

I was supposed to arrive, pass through

Cease, or retire, have learned, or come home to graduate

But the alleged rite of passage eludes me

There is only another horizon

This memoir more a saga than a simple tale

Beginning and end seem synonyms

Impossible to trace and nevertheless infinite

There is always another horizon

Set up to slaughter god, but now it's time I kill

I, entitled to my death and passing

Now pass nothing but time

Endless frontier, awash with years

Eternal pilgrim, brimming with tears

So this is survival