I die, I die, my heart is torn in twain
Twixt many agonies. Be still, mine pounding heart!
Thy place lies not outside my ribcage.
My soul would be consumed amidst
A fiery wrath were it not for the tears,
The tears I weep in shame and rage and pain.
Sweet melancholy, take your darkling hand from me,
For else my lament shall tear
My very soul away, and leave me naked
To bleed my lament upon unforgiving stone.
I weep for thee, poor abuséd comma,
Dear noble comma; thou who seeks only the love
And companionship of thy sweet lady, the printed word.
Alas, thou art torn from her arms,
Wrenched from your place by cruel, distant minds,
Illiterati, gods among their own,
Who care not for the worth of thy friendship.
Thy kinsmen mourn thee, sweet apostrophe.
Ye who lately cast yourself into obscurity,
Cursing and raging at the callousness of life
And all those who bear its weight.
You left no sign but shadows dancing on your earthen grave
And unshed tears to wait on them.
Death's list grows long, his latest claims lie
As alabaster effigies; outcast, unloved, betrayed,
Cruel scorn heaps her laughing load upon their heads
And her shrieks do ignite the mourning pyres
Of we who miss thee.
The cause of thy sacrifice, I do not know, and nor
Do I try to fathom the wisdom that drove thee into the unent'rable veil
Of death. Forsooth, for all my weeping I,
Poor wretch that I am, am unworthy,
A mere sprig, a mud-blasted squire unfit to wield
The blade of his fallen master.
I fear this grief will end me.
If it be so, I cannot resist. Even those grey depths
Can hold no fear for me after the horrors I here witness.
The bright, bold word torn and butchered at a fool's ease,
The wrenching screams of prose, and poetry's keening wail.
Death. All is, all is, death.
The field is lost. The tapestry unravels as
Its threads unwind, the wailing weaver weeping
In the ruins; for without thee,
Without thee, oh forgotten comma,
Oh distraught apostrophe.
Without thee and thy kind,
We are dooméd all
To LOL.
