You told me that the bridge to understanding
Was the distance between light
and shades of doubt
And satisfaction was a grand illusion
Based on what we learn to live without

You said there was no lesser of two evils
The secrets that we hide are one the same
A candlewick of hope deludes perception
An inkwell full of blood to leave a stain

Yet stains are more than faces in the ceiling
The same as blood dries fast in paper graves
Like recollection’s cursed by double meanings
The facts are often blurred by grace, we save

But let’s not get too far from where we started
A poem begins with lines we often carry
Like burdens tied to backs in Pilgrim’s Progress
Matchbooks for the flames we haven’t started

You told me poets rhyme from desperation
And metaphors are fine to hide deceptions
A question mark is profit for deflection
While answers are quite boring in the long run

You said that ghosts are figments of the guilty
They crowd around the eyes and block intentions
Hiding between lines, you hear them haunting
Compromising truth with vain inventions

But let’s return to evil things we choose from
The heart becomes the soul, becomes the mind
And death is just a passage to acceptance
As light becomes a burden to the blind

For sight is often tainted by our longing
We trade our reasons for the words we need
Write to lovers as we watch them starving
Gorging on the poems of which we feed

And what of poets sleeping under green fields
Dead before their time, and did not know
Eulogies for pixeled souls, departed
Epitaphs are all they have to show

Libraries are more like mausoleums
Dusty shelves to place the unremembered
Walking over bodies, casting shadows
Disappearing in a sea of followers

The lines of love you sacrificed now haunt you
Whispering with a vengeance in your ears
Speaking tongues once-bit sweet seductions
Draining you of love, and loss, and tears

Trading faith and friends for time you covet
Multiplying pain with poems you weave
Sleight of tongue to charm the black ink serpent
Another book to fill with life you grieve

For every opportunity you’ve squandered
Worthless as the words of want you cherish
We often create ghosts with our decisions
Smiling as we watch our darlings perish

Your talent have been buried in a napkin
Multiplying ego in their stead
And even that, at last, is sadly taken
Gnashing teeth, while worshipping the dead

TM DiSarro
©2026 TM DiSarro/ MindScapes Publishing

From my new book: ILLUMICAT
available on amazon