Hope, heavy on despairing wings, struggles
Melancholy takes a tentative step
From a long-shuttered closet, encouraged
By emotions,
Reluctant hostages to the mind,
Straining for expression in the timeless sanctuary
Of a smoke-filled room.

Silence steals stealthily along neon lit corridors
And only the clamour of turbulent thoughts
Rents the tranquillity of forgotten time.
Still'd, silent room and vain anticipation
Of the shrill telephone's jarring note
That today would substitute for melody.

Nicotine-stained fingers endlessly count
The minutes of disappearing hours
Since last daylight visited the gloom
Night, yet not night, haunts the shadows
Temperate moods briefly exult
Between hope and despair.

In gestured futility, solitude's compassion
Claws at the walls of the mind's unbarred prison
And I watch wounded morrows' plummet
Impaled on yesterday's barb
When carelessly unthinking, I had heralded
A transient dream as my angel of joy.