Last Days Of The Prophet: (In Memory Of Friedrich Nietzsche) Poem by DM W

Summer leans upon
autumn, and I recall one
who was cursed by bright,
lightning flashes of madness.
In late August of
1900 he died, like
a condemned leaf torn
from teeming seasons; scattered
by the bitter winds
of fate across an abyss.
Who can imagine
what torments Nietzsche suffered? !
This poem looks back
through the grey mists of time to his
last fatal hours on
earth: misunderstood prophet;
spectre at Life's feast;
flowered realms long abandoned:
the price of exile.
Now there is no way back home:
taste of shadow fruit
and scent of withered roses.
Once there was light, now
there are only dark remnants.
His mind grows fuzzy.
His will power is broken.
Wandering through dreams,
his glazed eyes cannot perceive
refuge anywhere.
He hears the slow clocks ticking.
and is weighed down by
the dogmas of centuries.
Profound world-shakers
must make do with crumbs of Love.
O he crawls the walls
in the surreal, twilight hours,
as solitary
as a cold star. hopelessly
lost, in the maze of
an indifferent cosmos!
Alas, it is known,
that genius equals pain.