V (Death)

And thus

No headstone will mark our passing
No mourners shall pay tribute
No tithes to those who surrender to blackness
No offerings for those entombed in this barren land

The bells toll only within the strata of lost ages
Earth, death, time and sorrow our parting hymns
The circle has no end - our solace, no beginning
Peace is only found in these unheralded, desolate kingdoms
Within the silence of the soils
Amongst the mass grave of the forgotten

Cemeteries forged in peat
A cenotaph of bog oak
Shivering flesh cupped in the shriveled claws of the fenland mausoleum
Welcomed by a womb of cold earth
Coiling like a foetus, I succumb to the silence
Amputating the senses
Embracing a well of oblivion

I yearn to dissolve into the infinite
Where past, present and future are bereft of meaning
Where each echo of my torrid material self
Drips slowly into a sink hole of desolation
Where each reflection of the flesh
Causes a tidal surge of misery

A patchwork of memories floats before my mind's eye
And it is with the gratitude of a lifetime I witness them fade
Dissipating and drifting as morning mists
Eradicated for all time

I pray for nothingness
My starved will craves void
And in this stark cradle of dead fen-flesh
I have found solace
I have found my reward
I have found release
I have found my blessed death