Isabel Szurlej Poems

He is not a Sheriff.
He only makes sure nothing slides away—
no day stepping out of history, backward,
nobody rewinds the tape before the shot.
...

Last stand for her upon the thymele,
A stage denied its sacrificial torch.
Tragedian's voice tears the air apart;
A mournful mask bows low before the choir
...

Once a lone ship was shattered off a ghost isle;
her helmsman, William Lee, did not truly drown,
yet he returned neither dead nor living.
For years he wandered, caught between the worlds,
...

Rings whirl enclosed—caught in their restive run.
We two hang nailed beneath o'erarching gloom,
Gasping under the moon's pitiless frost.
Then the Unknown on outspread pinions flies
...

Pain is a separate soul—
the soul of an abandoned world.
He approaches from land burned with fire
forming log ghosts. His watchful steps inflame
...