An inconspicuous library
in a forgotten country town.

The librarian won’t let you borrow it,
but you may read it in the library,
hold it in your calloused hands,
even riffle its soft pages
gently with your fingertips,
like so many have before you.

It’s neither fictional nor factual.
The present’s moving line is thinner than a tissue.
Days to come are an enigmatic shimmer
—the taste of the wind on your tongue—
and though a cloying scent may recall
a long-forgotten moment, the truth
of the past is unknowable, lost
in the sea of time.

It’s written for everyone and no one,
the forgotten and remembered,
a story for run-away children,
chased by the fire of their becoming;
for adolescents, burning in the same calor humano;
for the charred ones, the cindered remnants,
who still glimpse that passionate heat
in their personal futures.

The stories do not dwell on the evil
of humankind, or on the coming
end of days. They offer neither
judgment nor advice.

Instead, the words touch shining moments,
stars in the firmament of time,
and you become a character
—yourself—
reading through the pages.

The final page is blank. You pause,
you sigh, you know the time
has come to pass beyond the book,
and in another life,
you’ll find the library once more.

art video

The Moving Line (no AI in the creation of this art video). Evolved by the Visual Evolution Engine, my software that seeks unimagined realms, 8K original images from the ultracubist engine. Art and poetry also on Instagram.

The Purpose of Reality illustrated short story and poetry collections from Meerkat Press, with pretty fair reviews from Publishers Weekly, Goodreads, Aurealis, and the like, available on Amazon and at other outlets, click for details including reviews.