Shadow Muse
by Odin Roark

What’s a scrappy old ghost to do
Whose graveyard fantasy
Has long passed?

I wander streets and alleys now
Still a companion to my muse
Who refuses to vanquish her shadow light
Nudging my silhouette endlessly
“There’s more” her seductive urge

We walk
She talks
We remain arms length
Her light betraying my non-existence

Cats screech at my presence
Mongrels sniff this visage
Forlorn and quizzical
They’re used to reality
Not shadows without object

My silhouette takes repose each morning
Astride the lions of stone
Ever faithful sentinels
Guarding the library’s entrance

42nd St and 5th Ave play host to many ghosts
But no other whose shadow
Belies ghostliness
That freaks them out

Muse and me are in the library a lot
The stacks my real home/grave
Yeah
Between covers I’m supposedly alive
Words
Phrases
Pages past

Innocent students visit
Unaware we’re watching
Helping lift the burden of the words
Off the page
Into the eyes of curiosity
Maybe into the soul of the future

Midday

We always find a park bench

How I appreciate her honeydew presence
Perfuming my surroundings
The memories naked with
Torch song sonnets
Melodies my own
Invaders long ago exiled

My specter feeds the pigeons
No concern where the food comes from
They bob at the bench
Hop up on the shaded slats
Coo a tune about no real food
Fly off

Another reminder of imagination’s maybe
Wonderful what your mind can do
When it projects out of this world
Into another today
Yesterday
Hopefully one more tomorrow