Bewildered, at all the things we left unsaid:
serendipity, chances offered, all that, cut dead.
Are we wise enough to play the fool?
On a vicious January night
we say, put out the light, and then, put out the light.
Memory cuts through this taut cold air,
slices through it like a razor blade through flesh.
Signs of an iron fog beckon me on:
a life lived in vain, a black hole in time?
Only by thinking do we make it so.
I listen to the be-jewelled spider-webbed
clap-clap-clapping of the bemused populace.
scattered amongst these yew trees, shadowed against the moon.
There's no trembling now from these scattered folk
a putting on of bravery, common humanity
eviscerated, it's true, by all that time can do to
human hearts and lips and eyes and lungs
faces kissed by unbidden tears of remembrance:
flayed by an ancient consciousness of what is,
I stand alone in this freezing unghosted space,
my insides squirming like a snake,
as I try to make a record of names and dates:
Free will or fate – too early or too late?
Turned away from hearth and home
We, who were born between Belsen and Napalm,
Choose to seize the beauty of the day
Hold it fast, then, give it clean away.