The Dark Corridor

[billy]

personally, i think you give the reader to much with will and aristo. specially aristo.

"Wretched, ephemeral race, children of chance and tribulation, why do you force me to tell you the very thing which it would be most profitable for you not to hear? The very best thing is utterly beyond your reach: not to have been born, not to be, to be nothing. However, the second best thing for you is: to die soon." - Aristotle, Eudemos

"Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity." - William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 3

So this ceaseless going back. for me this is weak, it makes me spend to much time questioning
The car broke down by the side of the road,
you walk on the hard shoulder in hopes
a house will soon appear,
a single light from one window,
like the light of the hospital room
you saw while exiting the womb. i love the last three lines, fantastic image

We enter light. We enter dark.
The front door of the house. The back.
Walking in at morning prayers
and leaving at evensong. at first i thought the metaphor were being overdone but they're not, after a few reads i've come to really like them.
All day we reflect on our first hours.
The butler showing us to seats,
then the offering of treats. this line feels a little forced.

The mush, the milk, the bruised nipple,
the sustenance bestowed with love
then denied with tender hand
as we are left to forge our place,
continue the grand tradition of Life.
Moving through the endless halls,
destiny is grist for fools. this line has too much of an opinion for me compared to the unbiased views in the rest of the poem

Look at the etchings on this door,
a thousand love poems, regrets,
the random bleatings of the pained should it be bleating?
and passionate mind still craving youth, would 'the' work instead of 'and'
an innocence these leaves refute.
These leaves browning upon the porch,
proof that wane will each life's torch. feels a bit clunky (for me)

a good take on life and death, lot's to like about it. your imagery works well, as do your use of metaphor in the 2nd,
thanks for the read.