Crouching in the rotted dust,
Covers covet the light;
Dull, discoloured dust jackets
And wrinkled leather hides
Of the books that moulder and muse,
Ruminate and render themselves
To dust, as everything must,
Upon long-forgotten shelves.
Becomes the perfect breeding ground
For shadows, for sickness, for sin;
The ladies are seen to turn away
With tarnished faces and tattered gowns,
While the hero remains anonymous,
A nobody about the town.
A plot studded with lacunas
And paralysed on page one,
Words grown together in intimate embraces
Never to be undone.
Thin volumes of poetry
Shiver with the poison of years,
As passions freeze and snow falls in May –
The daffodils die a beautiful death,
The clouds are mottled and grey.
A teardrop hits the page.