The waking world is strange again today.
I rise a man unseen and old and grey,
The shrill alarm resisted to the last.
My eyes in waning darkness glimpse untold
The colour of lost dreams and turns to dust,
The ghosts of things I can no longer hold.
Strange too the look of faces as they pass.
They see perhaps the mark of one who’s danced
Upon that midnight green beneath the trees,
With Fancy for his bride whose gossamer touch
Holds all who’ve known her, and with queenly ease,
Captures the heart that quails, and feels too much.
Mornings like this I see a world spread thin,
Its promises grown weak, its sunlight dimmed
To cast its spectral shadows on the walls –
The things and thoughts I once pursued in vain.
But now I know there’s nothing there at all,
And sooner would I sleep than wake again.
I am a step removed and move unknown,
Lost now to all who knew me as their own.
Thoughts turn to things unseen yet seeming real.
Faint music heard at dusk calls my return,
To dance again and then once more to feel,
The beat of Fancy’s heart, from whom I learn
The soul of one who hesitates to cross
The threshold of this world laments its loss.
It lingers at the edge of what is known,
Guilt wracked by its own strangeness crouching low,
Outcast from its own dreaming and alone,
Marks time until the music calls us home.
Hello Mr Graeme – A superb piece of work – thank you
Thanks Jim, much appreciated and good to hear from you!
Hi, I never really got poetry and maybe I still don’t but this one touched something..thanks
Thanks Lesley. I never really got poetry either. Like to dabble in it though.
Beautiful – sad, poignant, philosophical and ultimately hopeful. A splendid reflection on ageing and changing perspectives.