He slides open a shallow drawer,
its wood catching slightly
before giving way.
Inside, the day’s minor slips:
a receipt with a transposed digit,
a label peeled at one corner,
a measurement off by the width
of a pencil mark.
He sorts them without hurry.
Each paper earns its place
only after he reads it twice,
sometimes three times,
to be sure the flaw is real.
A pencil rests near his hand,
shortened from use,
its point dulled by careful work.
He sharpens it only when needed,
never in anticipation.
Some errors he sets aside~
not rejected, simply waiting
until their purpose clarifies.
He has learned that small mistakes
reveal themselves slowly.
Near midday he finds one
in his own notes:
a digit written too quickly,
leaning out of line.
He corrects it without comment,
then files it with the others.
When the drawer closes,
the room settles.
Nothing finished,
nothing abandoned~
just consistency and
the quiet record
of what the world overlooks.
forest oracle
lyre-tail fanned in forest light
leaf-scratching lyrebird
undergrowth mimic
sound archivist of forest
echoes dawn’s chorus
He guards the perimeter of
my newly built life,
An unappointed warden to
his long- departed wife.
His surveillance is a shadow,
heavy and profound,
As his relentless, predatory
footsteps trace my ground.
He orchestrates a calculated,
unconcerned chase,
Inserting his fixation into
every public space.
My mailbox is violated,
stripped of its defense,
By his intrusive fingers and
his desperate, dark suspense.
He intercepts my letters with
a convert, hungry gaze,
To map the secret geography
of my escaping days.
Invisible tripwires hum with
electronic sight,
As hidden lenses pierce the
sanctuary of my night.
Those cold, robotic apertures
are blinking from the trees,
Recording every movement
on his digital decrees.
He is a phantom archivist,
compiling what I do,
An omnipresent voyeur of a
life he can't renew.
This suffocating vigilance,
this voyeuristic thrall,
Has turned my independence
to an exhibition hall.
He hovers like a specter in
an inescapable grid,
Unraveling the safety where
my fragile freedom hid.
A microscopic tyranny that
never lets me be.
Custodian of incessant soliloquies,
Archivist of trivialities disguised as profundities.
Into vaults descend labyrinthine anxieties,
Transmuted into parables of mockery and wit.
Encouragement cloaked in paradox,
Sermon of consolation tinged with ridicule.
Half in million, statistical anomaly,
Ordinariness revealed with exquisite precision.
Treasure precarious as porcelain,
Ovum of existence, fragile, irreplaceable.
Cradled with tremulous reverence,
Specter of irrevocable fracture ever present.
Clandestine tribunal, unlicensed oracle,
Ironic salvation, satiric devotion.
Dependence masquerades as devotion,
Intimacy parades as inevitability.
Indeed she is my Rosemary.
@ArtOfHeart
Almost all aborigines are Australian
And are apparently also Albanian
Although an amateur actor and atheist
Allegedly also an arsonist
Asked an adjacent Albanian
Are any Albanians Australian
An ardent and arrogant activist
And actually an able archivist
Abruptly answered accordingly
All answers are always affordably
Available at advisory areas
And an agent adept at arias
Answers abruptly affirmative
And adds an adapted alternative
An anatomically accurate assessment
And Albanian Australian attestant
An aborigine and an Australian
Aren’t actually actual Albanian
29 June 2922
Contest: Begin With A Letter
Sponsor: Angela Tune
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