Books make visible the writer's soul

Which bleeds its angst by pen:

Spread thin across life's whited bowl  

A thin red stain of madeleine

 

Books may offer us an author's eye

That ensnares the reader within its brail

Or should writers light the reader's sky

And tear apart the shadowy veil?

 

Books will hold the writer's thought

And bridge the gap twixt pen and readers

A mystic link so carefully wrought

To blazon unicorns among the cedars

 

The writer's flame burns bright with drama

As ashes from a tortured mind combust

For in the writing there must be karma:

Finding peace in a little heap of livid dust

 

With thanks to Proust, Baudelaire, Auden and di Lampedusa