Halved Epitaph

I sought another self in fourteen lines,
Poured wonder's gaze in still pentameter.
Concentric ripples died on shores of rhyme
As iambs rose to sound in tepid air.
My wits immersed my voice in buoyant souls,
Black depths below the medium of sound,
Where centuries of lives in silence flow
Through agonies confined by their form's bound.
All fate is undeclared experience
Whose breath is drowned in pools of common words,
Who clings to Archimedean suspense
That swallows gasps and songs of self unheard.
My death ascends the cline where I must sink--
A shade unnamable who chose to speak.