INVOLVED IN SWITZERLAND

He said he was a poet

but his modest recognition

would dissolve in a bottomless sea,

 

that he wrote in the dead of night

then washed up on distant shores

where his shoes were seen walking alone.

 

That he could catch the words

that welled in his mouth

like vagabonds shuffling darkly

towards unbearable daylight.

 

He said he failed to see the point

of verse that led him through old libraries

to a place that smelt good but offered

nothing more than the next door,

 

that he once hitched a ride

from a man involved in Switzerland

down tree-lined roads edged with pink sunset

 

but they laughed and replied that words

are cheap and money speaks louder.

 

 

Ghost City Review, June 2019, Ed: Justin Karcher