Reading Material

A hording recluse found a secret passageway within his house;
his eyes popped out like in a scald and he went eek just like a mouse.
There wasn’t much meat on his bones--emaciated fellow he;
imagine eyeballs on a stick plus lack of vocal energy.

So let us call this fellow Lance--I hope you think that is okay;
(I was inclined to call him slim, yet that would be reclined cliché.)
His house was clogged with magazines, with books and hats of many size;
(I am not sure why Lance would wear a hat that slipped below his eyes.)

It happened that he found the passageway when he sat on a stack
of magazines along the wall--he nearly had a heart attack.
It was as if the wall gave way and there before him, beckoning,
this outré opening appeared--was it to be his reckoning?

A maze of lights and swirling lines were convolution to a fault;
Lance thought that this would stump even someone as verbose as John Galt.
“Yet A is A,” Lance said aloud as he began to become bugged.
(He realized there were those times when even good old Atlas Shrugged.)

“But this is now!” Lance piped, “Not then!”  and set about to check it out;
Some ninety seven pounds of hording acted, though he still had doubt.
With bony knees upon McCall’s and elbows firmly pressed on Time,
Lance slid into the passageway much like a slot receives a dime.

Yet he did not go all the way, inserting only head and neck;
(perhaps a bit of clavicle since Lance was being circumspect.)
A cautious recluse being watchful, wary of danger and all;
partly inside a passageway with outstretched arms against the wall.

Amid the lights and swirling lines, our Lance discerned a booming voice;
“Come into this eternity--you really do not have a choice.”
“The host of Heaven welcome you, so put away all signs of dread;”
Lance eeked within the passageway a, “”Gosh almighty, I am dead!”

Lance felt the pull upon himself--he sought with heart to keep a-hold;
ahead of him the afterlife--Lance thought he saw some streets of gold.
One arm slipped from the grip he had and magazines were jostled so;
he posed a question to the voice, because he had the need to know:

“What will I do in space and time, forever and another day?”
(Lance felt his bony lower arm begin to weaken and give way.)
The booming voice opined of singing, and of praising all day long;
Lance acted out of instinct and he humbly said, “Don’t get me wrong.”

Lance slipped into a passageway that severed his recluse-life cord;
(he horded so much, by the way, so he would keep from getting bored.)
Eternity is long, he thought, it is so long by any means;
before full entry, Lance reached back, and grabbed a couple magazines.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp
11-2-15