AFTER JUDE

What did all those novels

bring? A dreary house of

his own making, where

a barren marriage died -

bitterness that stopped the

pen, when all was bought

and cold was the hearth

and cold were the words given.

So, thirty years, and

back to poems; engraving

on medallions what

he had painted on frescoes -

yearning, stumbling,

falling, noose in the neck

and cold hearth, grave

and conscience's sharp dagger.

All there, those broken

shards of dreams that

kept bleeding the hands

that hold them to write.

02.01.2018