Beyond The Gone Crowd

 

     There is a blind that cares for me,

A blind that rolls in the morn and then again, evening,

     The colour, no consequence, no form or

Importance as, when rolled either up, or down,

Colour changes shape and shine, shadow

Within the room where cherubs once sang, and laughed.

 

     Every morn the roll lifts itself a hope

Of life outside beyond the stale room, yet,

I consider my hapless state, better beyond the gone crowd,

     Although, these days I find the job of

Lifting and dropping the blind, quicker and

Quicker, and quicker.

 

     Not that, I venture the light fades but rather,

Without the warmth of my best friend,

I consider the darkness – the mood I care to sit,

And stare, and weep, and cry for, there are no

Witnesses here beyond the gone crowd.

 

     My wife, a woman beyond any

That meander daily in falsehoods that

Make belonging upon the gone crowd;

An acceptance, has within her own quarters,

     A solitude liken to my own and yes,

Neither she, or I can place trust in others,

For the gone crowd sit on each with glee

But sorrow retains value as the strain

To smile sends the aura uncomfortable.

 

     That aura of my wife is missing upon my own struggling

Diminished light, and each and every day, before light

Fades the blind is down, quicker, and quicker, and quicker.

 

     I could join the gone crowd again, but know

The loneliness louder for their company,

     So here I sit, no tended hearth, no tended soul,

Just an awkward silence sat upright in darkness,

Wondering, what to do, what to do, what to do,

     But cry.

 

     I have begun a courtship of delusion,

Or hope but mainly, a longing far from tomorrow,

Where silence be broken as light again enters –

As children laugh and my wife prepares bread,

     Until that day, where now my wife and I –

Remain miles from home; this stale and solemn

Beacon of destruction, sits upon

     A world of disgrace, a place the gone crowd –

In earnest never dare acknowledge.

 

     My pallid skin now sweats where warmth

Is now transparent, the light from my life missing

Like angels who cannot witness this pain here on this world,

     The wetness of the cloth I wear unclear, whether

Tears or the stagnant discharge from ancient pores,

     A week has passed since last raising the blind that once

Comfort my fleeting hope, I think I will retire once more

The vacuous bedroom where breathing echoes, and crusted

Sheets wrinkled and unset, allow the seepage far from the gone crowd –

A vapour known sorrow, and if lucky, I pass the darkness a while

Where exists a numbness of escape;

     Just for a while,

          Just for a while,

               Just for a while, beyond the gone crowd.

 

Michael J Waite 24^th November 2019.