Lost Poet

. This desk with its scattered papers, blotted ink and unsealed envelopes… passages penned and tossed in the confusion that lives and breathes in my mind…my heart Distance frames the walls of the addressed…since canceled Splintered dreams on the edges are worn, time has shaved the moments…the places on broken calendars swinging freely of lost dates scratched within the numbered boxes Sorrow carved in the fine oak grain by an empty pen with dulling point…dented Poetry sits meaningless with rhyming phrases of hope…wishes…love begging for but a brief visit, only to be discarded between reams of teardrop leaflets Verses formed deep within a vacant heart, a lonely space, emptied by the loss I write in an absolute mist, fog induced renditions of another’s touch, formulating in the same words…always the same words, repeating in the darkness that sighs in rhythm of a flickering candle flame Over and over, echoing the halls of this barren heart Shadows drain the breath of hopeless desires…built on manicured dreams within a world collapsing in shredded prose, and fractured fingers, still writing I am lost without her… 10/14/16 The Poet's Ache Greg Barden