the war between memory and dreams – 1939

bombs blistering skins
goosestep killers
frying bodies

writhing grotesques
stillbirthing
headless skeletons

searching for the shapeless shape

broken down factories
machines
frozen
in time

baseball backstops
empty fields
lingering
in silence

searching for the shapeless shape

drifting
through
mists        forests
winding
windowless
streets

alleys
strewn
with garbage

searching for the shapeless shape

loves
forever
unpossesed

attainments
forever
unobtained

men
still
kill
for

since before i was born

the last lullaby

you

face
of no face

eye
of no eye

embrace
forever
withheld

i

traveling
tongueless
streets

passing
skull socket
windows

clocks moving backward

never

knowing

being

known

Ron Torrence published his first short story at age 50 and his first poem at age 80. Even so his fiction, non-fiction and poetry are pretty widely published.