Dark Symphony
You look so nervous,
cold in my presence,
standing there in the door.
Did you not expect to see me?
There is no mystery.
The time for waiting is no more.
Wipe away the tears.
They will get you nowhere.
They’re nothing to me at all.
Invite me in, my dear,
or just leave me out here.
It doesn’t matter how you stall.
You hear my ancient song.
You can feel me all along,
and yet somehow you still try
to run away from me,
to change your destiny.
I’m something you can’t deny.
Shall we dance?
It’s just one life you live.
I’m your living shadow, always present.
I don’t judge and don’t forgive.
I’ll sing my song.
You just carry on
till I carry you away.
When we meet it’ll be discreet
and it will be your final day.
There are no deals.
There’s no appeals.
There is no bargaining.
When I call, then that is all —
the end of joy and suffering.
Are we getting jumbled?
Order falls aside.
Everything you’ve known here.
All the tears you’ve cried.
Every smile you handed out free.
Every breath you took in vain.
Every note you sang to yourself.
Every passing of the spring.
Every dollar wasted on yourself.
Every saved nickel and saved dime.
Every memory stored on the shelf.
Every broken rhythm and fractured rhyme.
Each and every lie you told.
Each and every truth.
Every time you felt too old
and claimed life is wasted on the youth.
Tempo broke. Chaotic string.
Harken your last breath.
No shelter in an angel’s wings
when it’s time for a dance of death.
From the cradle to the mantle.
From the seedling to the grave.
You always run away from me
and search for somewhere safe.
My song rings inside you.
Though the meter’s broken
and the rhythms fragmentizing,
sing the song of mis-spent,
a haunted memory,
when the reaper’s the conductor
of your dark symphony.