(revised May 2000)
A ragged university drop-out
meditates in a monastery
on a mountainside in Nepal
focussed into deep nothingness.
Nirvana is not what he imagined.
An old dog limps along the shore
searching the horizon
for the return of a master long ago lost at sea.
The echo of your own voice
comes back to you in the wilderness.
A
broken family is briefly united
at the Top of the Town
Having finished their banquet
the silence is thick
with unspoken things
Eyes fixed on harbour lights
and the bottom of glasses
wishing they were somewhere else.
A writer with all the world ahead
hangs from a garage ceiling
leaving a note that said
'too many expectations'.
In a car with gases seeping
disappointment comes creeping
a life full of promises
no longer worth keeping.
All the pain has come to this
solitary moment of hopelessness.
In a motel under another name
tired of the endless game
When it seems you're the only one playing;
Struggling with a weakened will
The last sad flashbacks
under a cloud of vodka and pills
A copycat of how grandma ended her ills.
Sosad we have to end it here
There's so much more to say
Sosad you didn't wait around
for the pain to go away.
Sosad for your friends and family
to remember you this way.
At home TV punctuates the silence
in a marriage of paper thin tolerance
He, absorbed in the paper and his own thoughts
She, curled on the settee, lost in the screen
channel flicking, looking for something,
anything to keep her mind focussed.
Insular and distant,
withdrawn and rejected - alone.
Anger, frustration, fear.
Fear of being looked at too closely
and judged of no value.
She thinks no-one understands.
and now finds strange comfort
in the familiar claustrophobia.
Loneliness - the deep wound
The solitary disease, the internal affliction
steadily downward she climbs
to that solitary, private place.
When the door is closed there is no door.
But still she listens for that footfall
and perhaps a still small voice
perhaps a sign from heaven
a gentle knock, a calling from the deep
to wake her from the numbness
with confusion becalmed by peace.
A whispered prayer is all it takes
But who'll be waiting at the gate
to help ease this endless depression?
Like a drowning person in need of resuscitation
she cries inside craving caring conversation.
Sosad we have to end it here
There's so much more to say
Sosad you didn't wait around
for the pain to go away.
Sosad for your friends and family
to remember you this way.
- Keith Newman
( wordman@wordworx.co.nz )
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the Lonely? (a story of encouragement)