silence,
snarls
sinks its fangs in
injecting hissing
emptiness

an end has
been reached
hollow and clean
devoid of
catharsis

nothing else
to do but
to fill this shell
nowhere else
to go but
upward, onward.

there were
seemingly indelible
things that he
was certain of

betting it
all,
the whole world
and then some.

to no one's
surprise
the deal fell
through
and so
now his payments
include:

the endurance
of being
bitten by solitude,
deafening silence,
the punishing
embrace of
trifling emptiness
and a
host of other
horrors.

which, by the
way, are not
horrors at all
if you look
at them
in the thin
light of
the endless
night.