I opened a copy paper box that was sitting on the floor of my closet the other day. This was a box full of stuff from my desk in a previous office. Amongst the stuff was a CD-RW with "R.D." scribbled on the index. I had no idea what might be on this particular disk, so I popped it into the computer to find out. In there with all the spreadsheets, drafts of correspondence, and other detritus of the daily grind at my former position, was a word document designated as "Hell." This turned out to be the draft of a poem that I must have created during a lull in a bad day at the office. I kind of like it--"unfinished" though it remains--so I thought I'd post it.
The drawing is another from my high school art class days. My daughter saw it as I was preparing to scan it into my computer and told me that it was certainly the Gollum. Apparently she saw a resemblance to this creature that I drew way back in the day and Gollum as created for the movie version of LOTR. Since I made the drawing at least a year before I read the Ring Triology as a college freshman, (and have never seen the movie), any resemblance between the drawing and the Gollum, is purely coincidental. I think that it does make a nice accompanyment to a poem entitled "Hell" though.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxHELL
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe smothering solitude of hell
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxpunctuated only
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxby the incessant dread
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxof an arrhythmic ringing--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe unwanted dead
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxcalling up to mock--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxphoning in the bad news--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxbut those blessèd dead--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthose whose voice
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxone ceaselessly desires--
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxeternally silent
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxin an impossible future.
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