Abandoned dusty in the attic
A shadow flitters around the edge
Caressing the smoky veil of glass,
Searching to remember his first waking moment,
When he had become but a phantom
Of a man-
But alas, it had been always.
Silently knocking on the wall
Which holds him from the other side-
You saunter by and blink
And shun the one moment you could have seen
And he is forgotten from the ones who never knew him
And the fabric
Runs like soot over his world.
His eyes see but the ghost of the substantial,
His world imaginary staring through a window of glass
From which shines an impossible prism
Cutting a path through the smoky din
The dream-dust settles, making it but a circle
Glowing in the light
That he could live in another’s eyes.
That longing glare barely lights a beam
In the dusty sandstorms
That swirl unknowing in the upstairs abyss.
A cobweb of days long forgotten
Spells out a lost map of parts none traveled
And bone-dead
The shadow glimpses your heart and shudders.
Lost skies of fallen stars none found
The petty grains sifted through
As if you never thought to look
For the moon-bright glimmered tear
In the featureless field of silver what you only saw
Was you
And the night sky could weep no longer.
In between the hope
And the reality
Falls the shadow-
The mirror shatters.
Crushing glass slashing shards into the air
Shrieks erupt as the phantasm is
For the first time known,
The storm that had been hidden in that one-way mirror
Now unleashed, yet
You avert your eyes as if it was still a pane of glass.
I wrote this poem almost a year ago, but I recently revisited it and remember that I had never completed the intended fractal structure, and I added a couple of stanzas on an inspired night.