Most of my friends are either dead or dying.


old man alone in a room again

sitting at this rickety table
surrounded by flaking walls

with absent friends
i wait patiently

my mind littered
with ghostly remains

vague blurs of bleached memories
scratching at the boarded windows

no room for cosmic pretensions

the river will slop its banks
flood this room with freezing waves

i will join the ranks
of those who used to be

time and tide
savaging the flock

dismantling our lives
one death at a time



Poetry by Wumbulu
Read 683 times
Written on 2015-02-17 at 09:24

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jim The PoetBay support member heart!
I think this is an exquisite poem, a moment in time captured.

I read the first version (titled: second draft), then I saw you posted a newer version, this one. This is so clean, lacks for nothing. Well done.

I have to add a personal note. Well, I don't have to, but I will.

I identify with this is two ways. First, I am not young, friends are going. Second, I hear my mother's voice speaking to my teenage self: ". . . don't mope around the room. Get up and go outside, get some fresh air . . . "

I guess I would say this poem is haunting.
2015-02-17