Wednesday 20 July 2016

Fade

My mind weeps from struggling thoughts
set down on the living room table.
Thoughts that are known, but are also unrecognised.
Thoughts that are expressed, but are also forgotten.

There are seats by the table, addressed by the shadows
each with their own agenda.
I cannot touch them.
They mutter but I cannot hear them.
Now and then they may embrace me,
but I cannot feel them.

I once knew these shadows
yet I have never been more apart
and I have watched flesh turn to shadow.
Will the shadows fade as does the light
that flickers on the ceiling?

I want to leave the living room.
I want to pick up familiar paintbrushes and pens
and splash colour.
I can't.
I'm not sure why.

Instead, the room is both quiet and loud,
and although many journeys have sung chords of poetry
my throat coughs dry.

It is a long tiredness,
a still tiredness,
another drone.

A radio plays in a corner.
The static interrupts my sight, my ears, my feelings,
and melts into a slur of a pitiful consciousness.

It's been so long,
dancing and singing and shouting
that I feel much more of the nothingness
that begun my art.