Writers Eulogy
another day breaks
through spent hourglasses
on painted wooden windowsills
warming settling sand
as writers labour to create
anew
rooms measure time in syllables
emotions pool around us in ink
white space ignites blue
then orange
a poetic inferno departing
in drifting ash
blistering paper slowly curls from aging walls
giving new breath to hidden veneers
dusty tales sealed in
glue, crack
like thick makeup on
an old face
faux leather chairs, grand desks of pine
overlaid with shallow oak
tarnished
gold-plated trinkets adorn corniced shelves
with
forgotten fiction and others’ truths
a space where everything is briefly real
and past narratives
bookmark time
in bright, but empty
rooms
Arcadian
Eyes
dark eyes reflect
smokey flashes
from deafening staccato machine guns
fixed on three-dimensional
flat screens
fingers scurry over wireless consoles
like spider legs attempting to evade
death
from hunched lumbering
gamers
a binary coded world
never burning
but always on fire
forcing sweat to boil
from our pores
to cool tranced,
agitated monsters
thick layers of masked decay
melt from our lit faces
like wax partitions between
real, fake
human
artificial
in this crowded metaverse
where all has been equalled
and corrected
we are
lonely
a world that can no longer be unplugged
where soft hands without heartbeats join
then pass
through
to emptiness
God’s Garden
where her tears slip
and settle
wide-opened daisies are born
shades of powdery pink
and white
bowed angelic fingers
lifting up beaded
golden saucers
light breezes sweep
weeping petals
broken pinwheels
seed imperfect copies
as tears wilt with everything
soft wings brittle
scatter like dandelions
across unsettled
fields
in heavy gales
discarded vessels
droop
brown
and
barren
a wasteland wholly stripped
of faith
a grief deeply
dampens her earth
inspiring all that may
one day
again be
beautiful
Short Circuit
Like buttery oil
briefly
Spilling through
streams of crystal-clear water
energy infuses
new life
desperate to stay
afloat
In unyielding currents
competing for space
in flesh
and
dirt
never balanced
We flow
bubble
and
separate
Peering through syrupy
membranes
reaching
for charged branches
in stormy
heavens
Brilliant
blinding
crooked cords
Allowing us to
leap
To the next seeded womb
and live again
Rooms without Nightlights
Sparring with moonlight
prying through shutter gaps
menacing figures
cut from a cloth
of night’s deep sky
haunt the walls of our
youngsters’ rooms
compelling little feet to
rush through
adrenaline filled
corridors
to escape
cracked basement doors
leaving lonely spaces
with ruffled sheets
to tend to their own
ghosts
Now safe in the arms of loving guardians
nestled heads
with tousled hair
gently sleep
beneath stuffed beasts
But imagination tempers with age
and villainous allies
crawling out from
between the covers
of twisted fairytales
swap darkened spaces
for inviting masks
fooled only by our children
framed on forbidden
trading cards
in palmed devices
At the threshold of French-vanilla taffy wallpapered hallways
like strained umbilical cords
leading to once unlocked doors
we are desperate, discarded
sherpas
in the thick of some
impossible trek
lying awake on
stone-like mattresses
grasping unread bedtime stories
with stressed spines
as sunlight fills our now
adolescents’ chambers
In rooms without nightlights
Louis Efron is a writer and poet who has been featured in Forbes, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, The Deronda Review, Young Ravens Literary Review, The Ravens Perch, POETiCA REViEW, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Academy of the Heart and Mind, Literary Yard, New Reader Magazine and over 100 other national and global publications. He is also the author of five books, including The Unempty Spaces Between, How to Find a Job, Career and Life You Love; Purpose Meets Execution; Beyond the Ink; as well as the children’s book What Kind of Bee Can I Be?
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