Regrets, they come in waves and break around his feet
And he begins to wonder who he might have been
Had roads diverged in different woods and fields
Not yellow or yet any colour still unseen
But clearer now by day than windless nights
Still nearer than the objects of his dreams
It'd rained late into the evening, and when the lights were shaded
Around the pool outside and with the windows shuttered
He'd thrown on loose clothes, flicked open an umbrella
While high outside the stars the lightning flashes muttered
Pulled open doors that led to the veranda
And moved outside once more with all his thoughts unuttered
The smoke, from fires on Java lies heavy on his senses
An omen of the time of year and of the past condition
He shrugs, ***** in the acidic nighttime odors
Reviving lives not lived but revealing his admission
That time beyond the present that mirrors every movement
Within, without, and yet again, the flicker of suspicion.
The pistol in his pocket, illegal not unloaded
A symbol of his state of mind and by his sole discretion
He kneels beside the water, deep-set and in the shadows
Lips forming wordlessly around the last confession
Images of where and what and who and why and whether
A portent of that final action, sensing and impression
The smoke from fires on Java lies heavy on the water
The reek of cordite mixing with the smell of burning grasses
Indignant birds protest the crack of one small set expulsion
The echo round the swimming pool reverberates and passes
Nothing more and nothing less and time and space and matter
Slick red upon the treacherous tiles, the shattered bloodied glasses.