We crashed the raping, ruinous waves
Of Acheron and the tremulous Styx,
To stand defiled before the Lethe
Memorial souls dying in our midst.

The river spewed a gelatinous rime
And buried by the jagged frost,
Filed souls drank their fill
And fell in a spiritual holocaust.

Next came I the water gaped
To dissolve my lifelong sorrow;
I knelt and cupped black purulence
Drank, but rescinded my swallow.

For too much untold grief,
Lies dormant on the Lethe;
Death fades no treading pain
Of the soul that draws its breath.

Etched upon the cresting cry
Stands the scar of mortal kin;
My elder lying breathless
His son a trench of sin.

I surfaced from her womb,
Memories in tow;
Sunken eyes, wrought with tides
Of the agony below.

I wailed for those disheartened, lost;
And, harboring the vile Lethe,
I spat it on the affluent brow
Of the white deliverer’s face.