ain is a solitary shaft of sunlight
piercing the fathomless depths of a wishing well,
reflected off the tin-can shards in dark prismatic waters,
refracted spears of realisation and the blinding truth they tell.
Looking backwards with somnambulistic vision
I can trace precisely and account for every minute of every day;
yet the wishes coming true as I grow numb and older
are the ones I make instinctively to wish my life away.
Half an existence spent inert, dog-tired, dazed, asleep:
a long and protracted coma in near dreamless sub-consciousness;
the windows to this sedated soul have been closed for half my life
and the hurt when they were opened helped me sleepwalk through the rest.
They say time flies when you're having fun
but it still shifts apace when beset by misery and fear,
agonisingly stretched and elastic as age progresses,
accelerating down the decades, hot-rodding faster by the year.
It seems like aeons since childhood's languid mainframe
spanned what felt century-long summer days;
the time-killing carefree vacuum 'till the tolling of the school bell,
calmly, achingly dragged-out through egg-frying pavement haze.
Then the psychomotor retarded tread of winter footfalls
softly,  thuddingly imprinted by frosty power-cut nights,
hyped increasing excitement of Christmas morn expectation
for the day itself to burn out like warp-speeded candlelights.
For certain, I don't know, but I feel I am to blame, a sleeping sleepwalker at fault,
for I did all that I could, by doing so little, to make this pain occur;
my past encapsulates into seconds, minutes an hour
whilst my future is gone in the blink of an eye,
just a spectre...a figment...a blur…

Copyright © Tony Bush 1997

The following poem was sent to me by George E. Leonhardt for whom I wrote the work Leaving (Mika's Song) - posted elswehere on Junkyard BLUES. I like it and therefore posted it with his permission.