FENCES

The shadow I chase is as hesitant as I

A smoke ring floating, metamorphosing

On a sunless, moonless dream

Leaving the faint aroma of Yesterday

Sandwiched between slices of Life

A voice escapes as I turn the page 

The curled edge of a book containing

Unwritten rhyme and unspent time

scampering over a mind-field

of clouded corridors with no fences

A pulse, a beat, disappearing in an instant

skipping gaily over brackish waves,

slipping gracefully into waiting arms

of significant underwater currents

at the confluence of abstract and distracted thought

The shadow waltzes to the music of the wild

played exultantly on a single stringed violin

straining against the crooked arm

of a tune that haunts melodious

Under the dying light of a sputtering street lamp

It whispers a notion scrawled in ancient code

Understood only by ears from other worlds

comforting despite the growing distance

as close as much as it stays away

Soothing the present company of the sleepless

The night pulls tight, the drawstrings of its swarthy cloak

Dispelling colour as my eyelids in an unforced kiss

shut out light and sound in one fell swoop

And I lie in suspension, bereft of perception

robbed of sensation within my fences