Last Hand Clapping

And so down comes the curtain
upon another year and I sit
here in the dark and the cold
listening to the sound echo
hollow in my soul.

The tears have burnt in fire
across the sky of imagination
and the images have been reduced
to silence as I watch from the shore
along Sea of Despair where the tribes
wander through the years of exile.

I am no closer to salvation than I was
the first day our verses twined as one
and I am no further from damnation
than when I read her letter and remembered
the path I had chosen oh so long ago.

If there is a sound in my heart,
if there is one last song for me to sing
before I shut the flame from the lantern of desire
and walk the lonely paths of acceptance

it is a sound so far distant
from my pursed lips,
from the lonely sea,
of the last hand clapping

before the night returns
to encase all hope
in the bliss of forgetfulness.