Nanshe11 Mar 2003

Your syntax is awkward: his dog lay in breath? No.

Permit me:

He had smithed the words;
his anvilled pen spilled coins of thought
that piled like riches at his feet.
His dog lay at his feet, content;
its deep, regular breaths bespoke no other need.

The sun set and rose, rose and set
as he shortened the sentences of people
whose decades fell like minutes,
mindless of his own.

All things became music
whose notes he alone could hear:
folly and love played melodies
he kept to the rhythm of his heart.

Death soon lost its thrall:
no more the dreaded machine, advancing, merciless.
A sweetened darkness, empty,
honest as the dog sleeping at his feet
urged him on toward eternity.