Endgame

by Romain P. A. Delpeuch (July 2023)

Einsamer Mann auf einer Düne, Max Liebermann, c. 1908

The door is shut, and I am left outside.
I will not even get to bang on it.
I wouldn’t dare. And I don’t really want to.
A ray of light through spaces cuts a line,
where all the objects I could see have vanished—
at once—and left the world so void. This thread
is hanging there for hope: the damned get high,
then lower, further down, when from their touch
it breaks. But always there’s another one.
For hell is made of hope, and hope of light,
the drug we can’t get off, whose dealer’s Name
should not in vain be taken. We are duped;
I let myself be doped and caught in dreams.
–
My place is in the outer darkness, with
“idolaters, and whosoever loves
and makes a lie,” for poets always lie—
though through their lies it’s truth they want to serve.
–
I drink some light, that from the ceiling oozes,
and music from the upstairs neighbors’ dancing
keeps me from fading right away, maintains
my sense of being here, just long enough
to feel unfolding some few moments more,
beads adding up to everlasting chains,
in rosaries of prayers I dare not speak—
for I don’t know who’s listening to them.

Table of Contents

Romain P. A. Delpeuch is the author of Hypnagogia (Terror House Press, 2023). His poetry and short fiction appear in New English Review, Terror House Magazine, Apocalypse Confidential, Ekstasis, D.F.L. Lit, JOURN-E (vol. 1, no. 2), Atop The Cliffs and The Decadent Review.

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