Internet Publishing
By Mark Cantrell
Logged on to the labyrinth, looking for an audience,
Begins a journey through the maze of silent
Gloom-clogged corridors, all leading to endless virtual
Potential, so it says, so I follow,
The path of digital endeavour.
Reach out, search out, in these digital by-ways,
For eyes and minds
Worldwide, that might shed life on verbal art.
In time it leads, this path, to the deepest basement,
In the subterranean bowels
Of dereliction,
The building crumbling on the edge
Of a forgotten cyber-town, clad in cloying electron mist.
There in the dark, staggering by torchlight,
This author follows the spoor of hopeful
Anticipation, discovering the trail
Once blazed by Hope’s eager passage.
In that basement, the lowest level,
Where decay and mould make their nest,
The corridor at last meets destination’s end,
That place where public attention hides.
At the end, a room, dark,
Where words, pinned like dessicated bugs are stored
On the noticeboard of publication.
Forever unseen, it seems, still, the author adds his verse,
To the clamouring cacophony of silent, silenced voices.
Left amidst the yellowed scraps
Of paper, all born in forlorn hopes, yearning,
To complete their birth,
They wait, the words,
They wait.
They wait, and the damp blots ink,
The mildew stains, the heart chills, hope melts,
Dripping its decay to add substance
To ever-deepening shadows.
Here, in the world-wide catacombs,
In the vaults of digital dreaming,
The words cry out their muted squeals of pleading,
Need, for the reader
That never comes.
Mark Cantrell,
Stoke-on-Trent,
15 October 2009
Copyright © October 2009. All Rights Reserved.
Category: POETRY
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