The ghost of Frederick Wry.

by John Smallshaw
(London, England)

Writing becomes the margin
The annotations,exclamations..
In the corners of my life.

I am stifling in the sutures of some silicone filled future
where the real becomes the fiction and with a predilection for affection.
I search out with some conviction to look for something more.

In the corners of my eyes where constellations live and die..
..and where stars are born and burn
I turn in to inner space
Hoping there I'll find the place
Where this pen that meets the page is divested of its rage
And in the margins once again
Only peace and ink blots will remain.

Books are made to frame these words.
Sturdy things with wire bound spines.
Many times, I have looked within and been taken far away..
..from where I lay..into another world within this world.
In the whirling of narcotic free.
A story.
This is the me.
The light against the night the wrong way round
The day that breaks without a sound and yet remains unbroken
A token that will win no prize
More constellations in my eyes.

Progressively I believe in more and more of my own lies.
And surprisingly..I knew this would occur
This event was written in the margins when I wasn't there
But was read and readily digested as another fiction.
Fact.

Something that I missed..I lacked?
In the margins..life is difficult and to define a future..
..has no future but the snipping of another suture
Binds these wounds and hurts abate.

I would not write against the margin of my fate
Nor relate the pangs of hunger as I take
An empty page again..to sate my rage again.
I must behave again..
..must be brave again.

In and on a dusty manuscript where one more dream was stripped
And one more life was ripped to shreds
I put to bed my haunts.