Novel Neglect

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.

Become 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.