Book of Poems

She

Brought you a book of poems,

She, your new-found comrade,

As though present when all went by you,

And witnessing you when all went by her,

Through story-portions shared for days and days,

In moment after tired moment of fleeting camaraderie-building nostalgia,

Trapped by sheer word-crafted imagery.

The book

Caught hold of me with its soft, seeking, unhurting tentacles,

Coiling around me and lighting the dormant embers of word-lava

Lying as unheeded thought-seeds inside for years,

Waiting to burst open a thin excuse of a veneer,

And suddenly these thought-embers knock, bang, pound on the dusty fort-door

That lay shut, for no reason, like the routine shutting of creaky closing-hour doors

By the weary guard of a museum of history told ‘one fine next day’ that the monument

Is no longer to be visited, and worse still,

Is to be out of bounds, by decree, for no actual rhyme or reason…

...And now the flood-gates open, and the fire rages...!