Overheard at the Cork and Keg

He hates poetry.
He hates the way it sounds,
how its writers spills out words,
yet keep their secrets close.
He loves the certainty of wine and bridge.
He keeps his iron drawbridge rusted shut.

In the water swirls around his moat
many croaking frogs announce abundance.
Every spring, pink lotus blossoms burst open in the green scum.
Blue dragonflies dart across the lily pads. 
They feast upon mosquitoes.

He hates his own poetry and the poetry of others.
He hates to look upon the sands where Ozymandias sleeps.
He rushes by the woods so lovely, dark and deep.
He will not rage in the dying of the light.
His candle burns at one end, soft, quiet.
He walks through days blindfolded, 
hands tied 
behind his back.
His heart cracks open a thousand ways,
not in the flow of poetry,
but in the glow of alcohol and a rigid sadness.

We mourn his cataracts.
For we love poetry.
We love the communion that it conjures. 
We pray, one dark and dreary night,
he will look up and over the ramparts,
that one day 
he will spy its light.


—Emily Romano

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