A Heavy Coat

Rain melts down the sloping screen
Like skin sliding off

Keeps on coming - running
Joining the never-ending race
Of rats on the slippery slope slog...


I keep on breathing in, breathing out
Filling fog in the dry, druggy chamber
Thickening the glass,
Quickening the heart
Until a door must be opened to let the foggy fug ooze out.

Melancholy came to visit this morning
She didn't say for how long, or from how far
She'd come to stay

She wore a heavy coat I was saddened to see,
A heavy coat means business.

Now I sit with her beside me
A pen in hand too heavy to hold

Fat and swollen silver like a bullet - only bigger
A bullet with its gun on the inside
A Russian doll invention

I slice the bullet pen open like an old frog
No inky blood runs out - instead
One shiny silver tooth shoots - bang!

Digital data storage
Masquerading as an author

Is it a pen, is it a doll, or is it an empty chamber?

Or is it just a blunt, doubled-edged sword?

Frustration turns foggy
Hurries out the door
Seizing his freedom by swallowing it whole

Melancholy remains
Too heavy-coated to hurry.