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ZiN Daily

James G. Piatt: Captive


Image: Unsplash, downloaded (https://unsplash.com/photos/sosPE5SkA4s) 09.07.2023.




A Place Between Somewhere and Nowhere


The decomposing hours of a dark

night in a cemetery hold an old man

captive in an unreality, leaving him with

a sense of wistfulness. He anxiously

searches for metaphors to smother the

meaning of the lonely frogs as they

croak into the strange emptiness of the

moonless night. He senses that he is now

just a gray mist taking flight through the

vagueness of his memories. He lives in a

time of decaying hours, just waiting for

someone to empty his thoughts into a

reflection. What shall more months

bring, as nights, dark and bleak, spreads

death’s lethal vacuum, causing him to

smother in panting gasps? The lonely

warbling of night birds, intermingling

with the strange sounds of the wind,

sends the old man’s mind to a place

between somewhere and nowhere where

memories fly in and out of graves, where

a tombstone with his name etched on the

face awaits him.



About the Author: James, a retired professor, and octogenarian, is a twice Best of Net nominee and four-time Pushcart nominee. He has had five poetry books, “The Silent Pond,” “Ancient Rhythms,” “LIGHT, ” “Solace Between the Lines,” and Serenity, over 1770 poems, five novels, and thirty-five short stories published in scores of national and international magazines, anthologies, and books. He earned his doctorate from BYU, and his BS and MA from California State Polytechnic University, SLO. He lives in Santa Ynez, California, with his wife Sandy, and a dog named Scout.


 

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