Strangers Are Shadows

There it was, a stranger of sorts. I say "It" in place of "man" as my memory supports. A beguiling arrangement of coffee mugs, porcelain creamer boats, filled with lumps of matured cream. Sour and old as would be an elder, celibate parishioner. There where books on cosmology, showing me the endless closets of the universe. Chip crumbs, and dead writing, my nights operations. With a ball point pen preforming haplessly to deliver a life, always ends in the same habitual flat lines. And my torn piece of paper, with words as wounds, doesn't pull through. "Call it time of death 3:38 am" Fifth one tonight. For tonight this shall cease. The stranger it seems has his own words for me. In the shadows he speaks so gentle but abrasive. in perfect harmony, each his voices. "No more pity for the odd one now." "No love less given to the average mans brow." It chuckled and turned and hummed as it took leave. I wrote better that day. A poem about a man who leaves his home in Oklahoma, and travels all the way to the city of angels. He starts selling fruit on the highway, in hopes it will bring him interesting stories. He meets people and attends parties. Eventually writes a best seller about an Irish couple in The I.R.A., who commit treason in the name of their undying love for each other. And the heartbreak, action, the romance, and the comedy blew the world away. I won an award for that work and prestigious publications where pestering me. I often think of how I got here. Then I notice a strangeness it seems. Always watching lurking in my days and dreams. It's stranger and friend with eyes that gleam. A stranger who is stranger than the strangeness it brings.