The Ghost of an Echo: A Mad Collection of Mad Poet Poetry

Read.

*The Mad Poet highly recommends 'Read.'-ing with a full screen for an optimal experience. 

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Black lines on crisp paper, uncreased and unused and smooth.

It makes that loud, satisfying noise when a gentle page that never needs to be licked is flipped with a swooping sweep of a finger.

And oh, the smell of a newborn story. It has that beautiful new car smell - which you know won't last for long.

Or when you're digging through the dark, depthless section at the back of the most extraordinary library, the only light filtering in through the great walls of dust between shelves.

And the wood is lighter and rough,

from all those fingers, looking for an eye-catching title, are dragged along those precious, glittering letters on overly stretched cloth, have forever left their curious fingerprints.

And you open up that book, and there is no description, just the knowing that this story would forever be ageless, and

forty or thirty years ago someone just like you sat

right there, head plopped against the uneven shelves, and with a beautiful sigh, breathed in that glorious new paper smell.

And your eyes hungrily start at that first sentence, that draws you in with its sharp and ruthless steel hook,

and yanks you out of

all that you had ever known and--------------------------up, /

all that you had ever misunderstood and-------------up, /

into a world bursting with every possibility. And up, / you go, drunk with eagerness to see what is on the other side, the rusty track beneath you groaning and moving achingly slow, until you reach the top and before you know it you're f

                                          a

                                               l

                                                   l

                                                       I

                                                           n

                                                                g, faster than the eye can see and everything around you is a blur of black and white as your poor stomach is left far above. And soon those cramped edges of your black-and-white world start catching on fire, blackening like an old and overused tape, before it is violently ripped away and you are thrown into a world of colour and everything absolutely wonderful.

And

that's

only

the

first

page.