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Glimmers In A Private Eye by Barry Ergang (Published in Erehwon #104, October 1981; originally in Pulpsmith, Vol. 1, No. 2 Summer 1981. Reprinted in Coffee Cramp eZine, March 2006) (for Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, and Ross Macdonald)
Pebbled glass on the door invites you To purchase a piece of my core. Your raddled lives, your shrouded riddles Are parts of a puzzle I can’t ignore.
For I’m my biggest mystery, Enigma--unsolvable crime: The seeker of the linkages Connecting us in time;
The jigsaw man of dark ragged fragments Dwelling in silent solitude, Who awaits the tatters of your torn lives To assemble his own to intrude.
I’m your myth, your pulp pop fiction-- Hardboiled Galahad years beyond youth, Ready to joust with your demons and furies-- Who fiction engenders your truth.
I’m your rented dragon-slayer-- For a per diem and all expenses, I’ll be the sponge to the spillage of your cup And the mender of your fences.
You measure me by hours and days As I plod along the miles Of your mires and desires Till you’re reports within closed files.
I’ll poke through your closet of skeletons, Combat those who assail you with malice, Gather the damning evidence, Retrieve the stolen chalice.
I’ll absorb you into my armored shell, Ungird your beleaguered soul, Tread your serpentine corridors And return you to you whole.
I’m the crystalline prism of conscience, Refracted splinters of alienation, Tawdry detritus of your errant ways, The glue that conjoins your dislocations.
I’m other women’s husbands, Other husband’s wives; I’m other families’ children-- I’m other peoples’ lives. THE END Barry Ergang © 2006 |
Barry
Ergang is Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine (www.fmam.biz)
and an assistant editor for Mysterical-E (www.mystericale.com/). His
fiction, poetry, and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print
and electronic.