Embers and Cinders

I had nothing
to give to that old woman.
Who begs at the lights,
She gave me instead,
Embers and cinders;
Decay and suffering;
A life unredeemed;
Infinite infamy and inquity,
I have it all
She gave me more,
and old poem too.
Yanked out like a spasm.
A poem written by
a dead poet named MZ.
It goes like this:
"And I learn to move ahead.
Sometimes running, sometimes plodding.
But always ahead.
Learning, like Alyosha Fyodorovich,
“To accept everything
without the least condemnation,
though often with deep sadness.”
Growing things along the way".

~mk