Stalemate Exodus

In gradients of gray
I reckon of euphony
the savory verdigris
titillating my defunct compass
coaxing me to move
as the leaves fall to senescence
with a hapless acquiescence

This silence feigns resilience
mourning for the rotting sequence
and the stifling emptiness
alchemically transmutes to gold
but the rusting chains can't deny
the nursed grievance inside
the pangs of my vault

The chains of despondence
kept me incarcerated
in this haunted quagmire -
a cellar of wrongness
and lucid phantasms
once was my heart

For every time I try
to mount a ladder's stave
I slip into the venoms
of slithering snakes
I guess I am bound
to this squalid love -
always clandestine behind
a brambly foliage
because to love
in times of darkness
is to love in love and death

My mangled hand
leans on this cul-de-sac
too brave to squander in death
but too afraid for suicide
and with my morality suspended
in an open putrefaction
I will futilely wait
for your healing hands
or your raging destruction,
an exodus of vicissitude -
fall on the winter of our discontent
or succumb to the cycle.

poem by Norman Santos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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