Twilight Dreams in Retrospect (Along Oxford Street, 1980)
Feet walked a scornful pavement
no empathy there
where scores of mindless feet blindly trod
Monotonous sounds poisoned the evening air
terrace houses wedged in behind aging fences
TV’s, volume bellowing 7 channels and news at 5
spilled from windows
open to capture the feverish breeze
Voices in argument or play… sharp words slice through
frying onions and fetid odors
humanity’s debris over-flows bins …
such is life when **** sapiens, trapped
in the machinations of predetermined destiny
live in congested clusters
I turn a corner into Oxford Street…
in aching silence my mind screams -
- Do you not see that we are all shadows
of who we were meant to be?
For dreams can only live when freed
of the dying dreamer…
What Twist of fate brought me here
aimlessly wandering streets not my own?
Moth to candle flame
ghosts beckon with crooked claws…
… eerie calls
shivered on twilight’s quivering breath…
sunset, a mere flicker
through dappled trees
offers little light in its final moment
Thoughts trail in tangled streamers
inevitably following as feet
trace an invisible path
through inner city streets
Somewhere a dove weeps to witness
days demise, grey shades growing
dimmer, dimmer still
surely the dove knows
There can be no light without the dark
and In darkness, we have to light our own fire-
- feed our own dreams and desire
paint the night in cosmic lights and fear not
the silent shadows…
Three hours bled into street-glow and dark corners
as I walked, with aimless intent
time slipping into moments lost
in remembrance of forgotten dreams…
… once I thought heard… or dreamt I heard
an angel sing
and watched as halo’d stars
Surrendered to her call.
*
Art & Poetry Sharonlee©5-Jul-13
* In this poem the Oxford St I refer to is in the inner-city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.