Storyville exists on the border between time and eternity, dreamer and dream. All our dimensions are tangled here, and all our lives in touch.

         . . . and so it's Storyville
Which signifies the liquid state beneath
The shifty stars and lust we gave away
Yesterday when time's sharp point aligned
Another way, great Alexander lived
A sober life and Bonaparte triumphed
At Waterloo. The stories, see, are changeable
And want an artful eye to fix them hard,
To measure out the words before they twist,
Amoeba-like, in that primordial sea,
And tell another life than this poor tale
Of you and me and he and she. Don't think.
Storyville is what we make of it,
A particularity that floats upon
The World's insubstantial quantum sea.
To be an artist is to be a man
Who paints a face on reality.

© 2013 Harlen Campbell