Loneliness
Ghost pronouns, spectre verbs are not your call,
Are bright, vicarious echoes, not for you,
In self-inflicted darkness coming to,
Sequestered through dull thickness of pale wall.
I do not blame my low supply of gall,
Mute quivering, while phonic spirits boo,
I say instead: I'd talk at phantoms who,
Are hardly friends or sounding-boards at all.
Comfort, we tell ourselves, is summoned by
Light absence of necessity to act.
But when frail lies, morosely labelled tact
Are falsified, dark fright that keeps our face
Away from people blessing a shared sky,
Is clotting in our marble, vaulted place.
TCH