Whisper My Name
Whispering. Joylessly whispering.
Sitting in a plain soft chair
In the plain dark gloom in a plain white room.
Endlessly recycling words and phrases as empty as the life
That brought me through the years and seasons
leaving me scrabbling for answers
On a plain soft chair.
Talking. Ceaseless talking.
Why, how, where,when.
Thoughts. And feelings, too.
Words, babbling off the edge of time
In search of something I can’t quite name.
The conflicts, contrasts, constraints, demands, assaults
On my senses, ideals, stability, reality until
The mind clouds over with the detail of it all
Loses sight of the landscape of my place, of my years
Making good its escape like a set of lost keys
Down the crack between the cushions
Of a plain soft chair.
Reality bursts on the senses as
The ice cold truth of birth shocks the brain
A flood pushing through a broken dam
Sweeping away the scattered detritus,
Tottering complex edifice, defenses of logic, rules, patterns
Walls of lives and relationships, collapse
In a roaring crush of dust and sadness.
Consoled only by the strange embrace
Of a plain soft chair.
Imagining. Detached wondering
At the re-forming dust, rising like Phoenix,
Looking like self, feeling like nothing,
Turning into the light, formless swirling colours
A nameless path to a hidden dreamscape.
Slowly the mind releases its death grip on falsehoods,
Leaving behind old ties and the comforts
Of a plain soft chair.
And far away a singer sighs––
Whisper my name as you run through my life.