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The charcoal haze at 3 a.m

and the humming of cities in sleep

distant sirens as violins

cavort with the harps of the sea

Figures drift past broken windows

framed pictures stare in painless disfigurement

freedom's breeze howling past in mockery

here, reaching beyond reflections,

into eroded essence; this reticent departure!

The cruelest waves of white noise

obstruct what is out of reach

bells in the fog, the fog of static

lament in disharmony...

I am the phantom of this cold tower

trafficking sentience through black hallways

speaking to angels caressing the forgotten

forever evading the pendulous blade