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Oubliette
by
Jim Ciccolini
Shackles of times and sensations long dead
hinder all efforts to forge on ahead.
Though I’ve scoured, climbed, called out, and pled
I’ll never regain all the skin that I’ve shed.
Miles stretch before as well as behind me
while around are the ghosts of those who defined me
and though none are the same, still they remind me
and thus is how these chains do bind me.
The faces still fresh and soothing to my eyes
are certainly soon to meet their demise
for what I know will fade, and from thence shall arise
evolved from the pupae, haunting butterflies.
The game of the Phoenix does everyone play
as our flames are snuffed out in time’s churning ashtray
then lit up again for another day
to long for completion in wistful dismay.
There is no escape but to ride with the stream
and to treat all the past like a meaningless dream
but the banks of the River are where the lives teem
though they all drift away as does water to steam.
So you can give yourself up and go with the flow
or watch as time eats away all that you know,
watch the births and deaths of the seeds that you sow
or fall with the rain and melt with the snow.
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