Notice how a clock without hands
quietly hums in the attic, measuring
the weight of unspoken vows,
.
or down a dark alleys throat,
how shadows swap names, and
wind folds paper airplanes from silence,
.
notice how a dancer dancing barefoot on the edge
of a shadow catches echoes before they are born,

or how a player strumming a stringless guitar
searches the air for melodies that never existed. So
.
a soused man lingers
Between living and deaths door
Hoping for mercy
.
But…
.
Who will offer it?
Who even cares anymore
About one who has
Settled into a mold of
Desiccated snobbery,
.
For years reactive
Now hollow and quick to judge,
Pride seeks redemption
.
Once inspired, now
A dry tussock of dead grass,
He examples how
A snobby inkhorn thinker
Denigrates others with ease
.
An empty bottle
Keeps a ghostly hollow shape,
Standing in mourning;
Life has taken your thirst, and
Left silence you could not live….
.
© Richard Lloyd Cederberg
6/2026
.
© THE PORTRAYAL SERIES: Poetic observations and insights (good and bad) concerning my immediate family, extended family, and old friends, alive or dead. This series will also address certain of the actors, artists, musicians, composers, and writers I worked with in college, or professionally, that were influential (in one way or another) in shaping the man I am today.     A NEW RACE OF HuMANS