There is no bright light to travel toward (revision)

[tectak]

The stories you’ve been told are wrong;
this is no mild passage

to golden streets. There is no comfort-

ing metaphor for this state.I just cannot help myself, but nor can you, todd. What IS the point of these peculiar and pointless line breaks? I reads as if you keep having mini-strokes Did you look for a word to avoid the "easy passage" cliche. Sometimes the avoidance highlights the cliche. I keep hearing my muse scream "easy". On a more kindly note, I just don't think that "mild" is the right word. Ask this question. "Welcome Mr. Leif Ericson, how was your passage across the Atlantic Ocean?" . "It was not mild". Hmmmm.

The breath escapes,
the body shudders, exhales.

Life unzips like an old coat,
discarded.As a metaphor this works but the devil lies in the detail. Unbuttons, maybe? Trouble is the metaphor does not withstand logical reasoning. Is the "unzipping" operative? Should you say, "Life unbuttons from an old coat, soon discarded" ? Just me.

Memories drown in the river
facts alone remain, well-worn stones

without significance. This is lost to usWhat is lost to us? You do not say or even imply. If I stretch myself I could guess but the Lethean draught (more commonly draft) seems not to affect the remaining facts
a Lethean draught, irremediable
Gasping for syntax....needs punctuation. Why the line bre.....oh, the hell with it!

concealing loves, cares that bind, tying
us to this world, that we may not leave I was not happy with the amnesia-inducing properties of the Lethean Draft, make mine a pint, only "concealing" thoughts but after a ponder and a large Bells I cannot see a more meaningful alternative. This confession should not encourage you!

this woman at my bedside, my wife,Surely this woman deserves, at the very least, a capital letter at the start of her sentence?
presses a damp cloth to my face.

She has become
an actress in an old movie


that I might have watched once.

These recollections form an endless list

of mocking credits rolling
NamesUponNamesUponNames


in this oppressive quiet
ForeverForeverForever. Consistently quirky end-lines but oh how they distract from the beautifully expressed and well understood sentiments. Grammar NEVER makes things worse. Only bad grammar does that. If you are gasping your last then OK to the breathless

pauses which you have insisted
upon. Throughout this poem

sadly, I feel robbing the piece of some of
it's worth more than this

I cannot say.

We may never agree on everything ,todd, but I like what you come up with almost every time. I am at a complete loss as to why you, and others, see fit to break up often wonderful prose in such a strangely functionless way. I have never had a sensible answer to this question.
A private re-write, with due sensitivity to the soliloquy which you have written, may never grace these boards. If you feel strongly about your "form" then I can understand WHY you would hold on to it.....but for workshopping of a piece it is problematical, overriding many of the virtues with which your work is imbued.
Best,
tectak