Leatherbound
______________
All my aspirations — bound in leather and by string,
confined upon the pressed flesh of old oaks;
inscribèd in purple-black acacia ink —
revised and lowly written on the page.
Portal-like, each rectangle each phase of mine divides,
slow-written, by the quill of the unfathomable divine.
In these phrases, here I am — in symbols, here am I.
I cannot see the pen that moves upon papyric body;
save stirrings of the stagnant air in long-forgot library
where I read — and I am read by prying eyes and pliant hands
of macroscopic men of stars who pause from tracking sand—
each particle, each motioned arc;
afloat an undulating sea
whose draining sink, whose wretched mark;
is known, in hourglassy glee
to be seen swallowed by the whirlpool — slow-revolving time,
then to live again, reversèd; playing out in careful mime
each aspiration never reached — each breath too shallow-made;
each absence of the soul — unreal, imagination-laid
and creaking is the battered spine contracting now to close
my story, full of failure-monuments in regal rows.
words and images by @d-pend
created for HIVE on Sept. 14, 2020.
additional content available on Patreon