THOSE WRITERS!

THOSE WRITERS!

Writers are always certain
Those they write about
Don’t know what has been done to them,
Don’t know and wouldn’t care
If they did.

The writers are wrong.

Those captured people,
Old ghosts returned,
Some happy, some furious,
Have a deadly understanding
Of what the writer is about.

Lifting their voices in complaint,
Shaking writers’ cold shoulders,
Awakening them from stolen dreams
When they should have been sleeping,
‘Leave the dreams alone, pal,’
They know.  And one day
They are going to come back
To haunt them.

Serve those writers right!
Capturing people’s souls without permission.
Caught for ever in a remorseless
Circle of bad and good.
Caught for ever in a circle of helpless love.

                                 ©2021 Gwen Grant.
PRIVATE KEEP OUT!  by Gwen Grant
published by Penguin Vintage  Children’s Classics
available in paperback and as ebook