While moonlight held the sky,


    an old beast slumbered fitfully,


    beset by fever dreams


    of swiftly flickering lights.


    At night desire came,


    the fierce fiend of a distempered memory,


    an ember flickering amidst the ashes


    of the past


    I beheld a flickering light in the night sky


    falling to the horizon,


    and beneath the starburst gleam,


    I pursued the fading radiance


    of that far-flung dream


    Through night and day


    storm, calm and mist,


    frantic with an ineffable anguish,


    a blind-driven flight spurred on


    by the whips of nameless masters -


    the passions that drive the heart.


    Beneath the cold glare


    of the desolate night,


    through mountain paths and trackless swamps


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    stirring with careless steps


    the swarm of fireflies at rest,


    and they surge skyward


    a cloud of earth-born stars,


    flickering in their panic.


    Day after a day,


    a dream born from feverish need


    in the hours wasted on idle fancies,


    bearing within my heart


    a warm silence,


    brooding on a decaying flame,


    and with time came the autumn


    of the strange suffering


    of the fire and the yearning


    while the temperate winds


    sang dirges in the twilit air.


    My hand reached out to grasp


    the sunset,


    to seize it


    and freeze this moment in time.


    But here, heaven remained


    bloodstained red,


    the murky shades immersed


    in an image, silent, cold and deathless,


    as a spark ignited within the soul,


    whispers rising like vapours from the muck and mire


    of ordinary life


    that ministered now the fading light.


    There is a dream there, somewhere


    a flicker of amber


    deep within.


    Life, and the radiance that consumed it


    emanated a remembered heat,


    the memory of an inferno


    burning secretly


    in the recesses of the soul.


    But from the ashes, new hope


    springs from hopelessness


    and the cage of despair is shattered


    at the sound of a songbird''s


    morning serenade.


    From that fitful dream I woke


    and the ashes in my soul began to burn,


    an ember,


    quickly taking flame


    once more.