Doors

August 7, 2012 at 9:58 am · Filed under Dark Side, Poems ·Tagged Charles L. Mashburn, doors, http://dversepoets.com/2012/08/07/openlinknight-week-56/, http://www.robertmccammon.com/, http://www.robertmccammon.com/novels/the_wolfs_hour.html, lies, opportunity, poetry, writer

The following poem was inspired by the Robert McCammon novel, The Wolf’s Hour. While the story I tell in my poem is entirely different than the one told in The Wolf’s Hour, I do wish to give credit to Mr. McCammon, and acknowledge his part in its creation.

Doors

 

The teacher, shoulders sagging, drones on

Something about knowing the world

So we can find our place in it

Saying there are doors to a thousand worlds

And if we listen intently

We can hear the keys turning in the locks

I wonder if they are locking us in… or out

Opening the door… or securing it shut

 

As she drones on, my mind wanders

To the sound of scrabbling in a dark corner

A rat, in the supply closet perhaps

Or elsewhere, in this huge chamber of the world

I wonder for a dazed moment how I came to be here

Or where, exactly, I am

 

Returning to the voice in the classroom, I hear her say

It is abhorrent when a man loses control over himself

I only half listen, briefly pondering her words

My attention ever drawn back to the scratching

The scrabbling rat in the dark corner

The center of my existence controlled

By animal instinct and hunger

Hunger that begins to ring in my stomach

Like a hollow bell

Ears hearing, eyes searching

My senses questing for the scratching rat

 

The hum of the teacher’s voice pulls me again

Beckoning me back to the real world

She promises me that any, and many

Of the thousands of worlds can be mine

If I can stave my hunger, and prepare

For the opening of a door… my door

By making it knowledge I crave

 

With a snarling grin, I doubt her

For the truth is, in spite of our best laid plans

This life is a walk on the razor’s edge

We speak boldly of the fight within us

Not knowing what it is we will lay down our life for

The woven net of politics?

Some narrow vision of freedom?

Love?

Triumph?

 

After exploring these question; these things

I find no easy answer

I find only that I am poised on a precipice

Above slavering jaws

Wondering if the ledge upon which I stand

Is truth… or just another lie

Scratching… in a dark corner of my mind

 

Copyright © 2012 C. Mashburn

Sharing with dVerse Poets Pub on their Open Link Night #56 this afternoon.

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