The Anchorite

He waits for things to come to him;
They sometimes do, but only words
In halting, syncopated beats,
And never people or flightless birds,
And no momentous alterations
That incandescently would shed
Their searing, shaming, officious beams
Upon his filthy asylum-bed.
He listens to the tragic world
Dispute itself through hollow tubes
With wires attached, but not for long--
Those bantam bickerings sour his moods.
Erratic research he conducts
By casting runes and counting beans,
And photomapping the languid koi
That drift across his painted screens.
For his amusement he will sit
Cross-legged on the balustrade,
Anticipating messages
That never left the telegrapher's pad.
He has, of course, so many books
In stacks that form his adyt's walls,
And many more to plumb and pile
And build upon the cloistered halls
That make his tomb, with him inside,
Wherein he'll read and eons abide.

Reviews

[softlyfall]

It took a slow reading to fully comprehend but this is intense and vivid and well worth time spent rereading.
Alone, because people (incandescently shed Their searing, shaming, officious beams Upon his filthy asylum-bed) are frightening and hurtful and also reveal who and where you are.
Self- acknowledging the insanity of such aloneness in the use of the word asylum.
But defending it because the tragic world sours his mood.
Words, literature, is a wonderful place to hide.
I liked this so much that I didn't even really notice the occasional rhyming, added like touches of color in a greyscale portrait.

[Carlos Lorenzo Estrada]

After reading this somber and thought provoking piece I'm reminded of a time years ago where my creative writing teacher invited me to his home. It was stacked with books. A hoarders paradise of paperbacks and hardbound novels and stories. I was a bit sad because I didn't see anything else but books. I don't know if it was something subconscious in me or not but I thought it felt like a lonely prison. A place where hopes and dreams only existed in words, but not in life and living.