1- Devils In the Ashes & Dust

The shambled mind
staring into the looking glass eye
where life had peered in,
death peered back out.

Dreaming, in the interlude,
back and forth between
Heaven and Earth,
 is where the dreamer discovers
its own mortality
within the eye of a devil
that they had known all along.

Old lovers, poets and actors
from an age that both had once been desired,
penned their bitter-sweet epitomes in little black bibles.

Those who had always loved her,
and loved her still,
hurled only angry curses into the winds.

While the frenzy still stirred,
long after the venom had settled--
her mind watched as the eyes
of this fair and gentle Beauty
had become like a panicked animal.

It was in her final gasp
that she stole her kiss,
shivering as Beauty grew cold,
and colder still...

Cold as Mother Night.