Sorry about the impossible-to-fix formatting ...
Greetings, Dear Friends: Wishing you well. I'm trying to lose weight in my own body and that of writing. Did a comparison between spare text of Hemingway and the ornate and flowery prose of Faulkner. Don't get me started on Proust. I'm gorged on excess of all sorts. As an editor, I have enough of the so-called dead wood to build a bonfire. Starting with my own MSS. CHEERS! CC NO SLEEP (original draft) Retreating to the cool of freshly laundered bed sheets is what my weary body hankers for. My crazed yet somehow subdued caffeinated brain, however, keeps me stiff and upright at my desk, my imagination making the most of what I know for a certainty lurks outside my low slung windows. They are not without curtains, but the sheer panels are useless for blocking out the horror that menaces from without. The collective silhouette of wraiths whispering by is exaggerated rather than blocked and, thereby, minimized by draperies that may soon double as my shroud. Were I not endeavoring to put the barrier of my desk between myself and the darkness that seeps through all planes vertical and horizontal of this doomed house, perhaps I could allow my mind to escape to freedom through the flimsy defenses of a sanctuary taken ...No Sleep (edited)
Retreating to the cool of freshly
washed linens is what my
tired body wants.
Too much coffee: my beat, worn
frame stays barely upright at
an overworked desk.
Imagination makes the most of
what lurks outside leaky, low-
slung windows.
They have curtains but sheer
panels are useless for hiding
the horror without.
A gang of wraiths slithers by,
sends a shiver down my
manly spine and
Cold and dark seep inside
and eat my soul....