• Paper Feathers

    Books, tired sanctums amongst the commonplace
    junk - torn edges are feathered paper wings.
    Grounded Icarus. The sun rarely shows her face,
    But condescends to burn; unfaltering, she stings.

    Inviolable privacy; inner worlds of other creation,
    littering the carpet floor like flowers.
    I love them yet, as Ares, but hidden in adoration,
    My heart's Icarus, watches, cowers.

    Looking at the feathered edges, crumpled pages,
    Failed ideas, scrawling, overstep the lines.
    Upon sanctums are marked the names of sages
    that surpass me; mere shadows on a cave too fine.

    I quiver. Falter.

    Tremble - see, how words have far more power
    than these rickety arrangements!

    Never enough to express the intangible.
    Sweep the crumpled pages aside,
    And read the books.
    For hope is surely far too optimistic...

    These things I write, they only touch the sun
    in a transient moment -
    and harshly without pride, they dive.