The Phantom of Memory

An old stone cauldron

Under an old building

with strange ghosts of old singers

little knickknacks all around

snatches of music from the Opera

never sung

Sketches for advertising posters

never hung

half formed clay figures

and the first chapters of a thousand books

a hungry mist swirls within the cauldron

waiting for its meal

A letter from her to him

The rose she dropped outside

still luscious and red

the black ribbon attached, still tied

The music she sang down there

The remnants of a letter, signed O.G.

The hand from the perfect wax model

And the ring she might have wore.

He holds it tightly one last time

but in love and hate drops it in,

crying silently forevermore