Bewildered, at the things he left unsaid,

Serendipity, chances offered, all cut dead:

Wise enough to play the fool.

I guess.

A vicious wind slices through me,

Here on this January night:

Put out the light and then put out the light

Memory cuts through the cold remains of the day

Parcels it up, so the day wont drift away.

Signs hidden by an iron fog beckon longingly to me:

A life lived in vain: guilty memories and shame

Arrive back across a black hole in time.

Listen to the be-jewelled spider-webbed

Frost-filled graveyard echo,

Yew trees shadowed against the moon.

No trembling now from half-remembered tunes.

Eviscerated by all that time can do to

Human hearts and lips and eyes

Trapped in earth-infected graves

Kissed by the 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 out the palimpsest of names and dates:

Unspeaking frost-whitened eyes.

Free will or fate — too early or too late?

Turned away from hearth and home

From the ends of empire,

We return down these unfriendly urban miles

We, who were born between Belsen and Napalm,

We choose to seize the beauty of the day

Hold it fast, then, give it clean away.