here is the cover and some lines from my first ‘narrative poetry’ novel…

‘this paradise, lost’

Part I

Departure

The juvenile tempest of my departure was one of longing

and aching in my bones.

Those steel giants have finally closed in on me,

delivering a suffocating feeling

of a life made inconsequential.

The bag I had packed was a pathetic ode

to a man in step only with

 the majestic rhythms and schisms

of his own beastly, imprisoned mind.

Part II

The City Slick

Trying to get the dirt and sand back onto my skin,

so desperate to release

the dirty oil of the city slick off my back.

Well-worn stains on my diminished glimmer,

jamming all of my words into tight crevices, impenetrable.

I was leaving the beggar of my own soul.

It wasn’t the reach I was chasing

but those genuine solid moments

when the earth descends upon me