I Used To Read Every Night Poem by Patti Masterman

I used to read every night
My thin book, of your heart's own verse:
Pages of threadbare longing
For your sentences recompense-
Words now which mirror,
Unreconstituted prose
That from impotency, arose
Toward my heart, like a lettered blight
Of languages silenced, by words
Our day became more like a night
Though once, I had even transpired
To imagine empires conquered;
Armageddons deftly averred
But now in consternation, I find
I'm to light my own funeral pyre;
Let my tears become my dirge
Of sorry tales that could deafen
Blind men, in a stumbling rage
I'll drag my own chains back to hell,
Since your mercy's worse than your hate
And, as there's no music heard there,
I shall welcome my toneless fate;
Music gave too much hope
For hope, without any dreams
The present song annihilates.