A LITERARY ROMANCE

Such a lovely bleak day,

the weather below freezing for now and thus, snow;

but rain will come, cold freezing rain

on its way to apotheosis as ice -

and I have run out of milk,

and thus have to drink my bitter coffee black;

it looks like the night

has taken refuge in the depths of my coffee mug,

that I drink the night,

all darkness inside, all white and gray outside

the windows, and here, twilight

in the electric light, and in my hand

some hefty novel with long dead

angry author in the cover looking accusingly

at me, eyes like burning coals

like we would have been

personal enemies over some dust-buried

issue from the days of Louis Philippe or Nicholas I.

Hush, my dead marble-head atop

the canon bookshelf of the 'Western Civilization',

its cold outside, its cold inside me,

and you have long been a shadow among

shadows beyond Styx,

so let's embrace each other

through the printed words, my neurons

connecting with your long-decayed ones.

Tomorrow, we don't have to acknowledge

we ever met in the streets beside Neva or Seine.

30.10.2017