Solid door seemingly so sturdy now tight and firmly sealed.
No hint from outward of hearts secrets, the mansion has concealed.

Many dreams long now vacated from the vast and empty halls.
Fragmented memories that hang, framed upon the fading walls.

The facade of many windows where no light within does show.
Seemingly no memory of love that this heart may once did know.

Like echoes upon the air the hidden memories ensconced in there.
Until echo fades to nothing and empty sadness taints the stale air.

Tortured walls in hallways that peel, are rent with unfilled crack.
Memory that time has worn and eroded as only time can lay attack.

No hint of any joy or laughter left within this mansions frame.
No face of beauty even in memory by which love recalls her name.

In streams of verse and congealed words or metaphors' twists and turns,
a poet paints upon minds canvas a view of where visions do etch souls with their burns.

Unique the transcribed observation to reveal the newborn vistas as witnessed there,
Perhaps to light the great mysteries of love and hope or uncover veiled shadows of death and despair.

With each new vision transcribed and the telling of what that mind has known,
Comes the realization by the transfixed readers that they truly are not so alone.

Shared idea, thought, hope and dream to which we can see and draw some link,
where poet reminds we are all but human and not as different as we so often think.

So difficult a thing to give the inexperienced a way to understand.
Why I am shaped the way I am by things I had never planned.

I could tell you of those things in the hope they would shine a light.
But unless you have been there you just couldn't see them right.

Now I know that from the outside I may look the same as you.
But I also know that on the inside I can see a different view.

Those unplanned things that changed me in oh so many ways.
Leaving me without a point or purpose facing lonely empty days.

So deep the changes made that I struggle to leave my own door.
In a head that despises minutes and asks what all the hours are for.

In a mind that knows me Oh so well fearing you can see inside.
Withdrawn from your society is my only safe place to hide.

My mind is not so broken that I have forgotten all my past.
It knows full well that by choice hope and love have been outcast.

To the inexperienced from a mind that survives a life in this way.
I hope you have clearer understanding of how I live my every day.

I have no wisdom to offer or warning of a path you should avoid.
External views wont show you why survival has been employed.

Where choice has different meaning, instinct plays a bigger part.
And mind suppresses both hope and dreams of a broken heart.

I am become who I am by the path my life road has turned.
I am this shape by instinct to survive, not from lessons I have learned.

In lethargies grip and restless mind,
I come again upon the day.
Where demons of my minds design,
find acres bare to frolic and to play.

An emptiness that invades my core,
until only black thought dwells in there.
Where tiredness is all I can feel,
and darkest depression is thoughts heir.

No calming thoughts to ease my mind,
and no safety can my lost soul yet feel.
The endless sensation of putrid stagnation,
no layers to other emotions have I left to peel.

Foreboding and deep weariness dark as shadow,
accompanies each thought and task within my day.
And though I seek escape by non-participation,
against thought there is no strategy I can play.

Turmoil to life's patterns of sleep and wakefulness,
where a soul and mind each attacks my own mortality.
Until left with just one clear and rational thought,
Of how simple and complete my final escape can be.

I recall many years ago...
An acquaintance who through misfortune and misadventure had severed three toes from his left foot. Although he eventually recovered and adjusted to this misfortune he always walked thereafter with a pronounced limp.

Several years after this incident he had the further bad luck to be involved in a cycling accident and this time he lost four toes from his right foot. Once again with the aide of professional help and prosthetics he was able to adjust.

Although he made physical adjustment he could never let go or refrain from telling of these two incidents on every possible occasion. In my mind it became his key to acceptance and seemed to be his way of gaining some sympathy for his hard done by life. I became aware and felt quite ashamed of my lack of empathy and was alarmed at just how irritated I could become whenever around him. I determined that I should seek help of my own... to discover why I felt irritated so irrationally.

I consulted with my GP and explained the circumstance in detail. I related how over the years the more I witnessed his actions and attitude the less restrained I could be in his presence. I would become both agitated and borderline aggressive when he would enter the room.

My GP listened and after brief pause to ponder upon the story I related to him he reassured me that my reactions were quite normal and were not as uncommon as I thought them to be.
I asked him if it were a defined medical condition and did I have need for concern.
He replied.... "you are quite simply lack toes intolerant"

I have called out often to you
and I have craved your intervention.
Never really sure if you exist at all,
I still sought for your attention.

I searched the faiths a many
and I have tried to understand.
What it was that I must do
to reach out to your open hand.

My faith has wavered greatly
as my time has ambled on.
Yet often did I pray to you,
though at times my faith had gone.

So many times did I reach for you
from the depths of my despair.
Hoping for some magic sign
that you were standing there.

I have looked upon the world and universe,
To see its beauty and its terrors too.
In some unseen and mystifying way,
these things all cry out a testament of you.

I have come to think that we,
are not at the centre of your plan.
Your universe so vast in purpose,
for the tininess of a single man.

Endless chaos and reconstruction,
on a scale that a lifetime can't comprehend.
Recycling endless matter,
on a path seemingly without an end.

Yet you gave me mind and time,
to see this snapshot of the plan.
Giving cause for hope that you can hear,
the prayers of this small man.

I come here to purge my words and thought.
To cast off webs in which my mind is caught.

To mend a soul defeated by life's battles fought.
To understand the lessons that experience has taught.

Where others say that life is much too short.
My mind just asks why I go on multiplying nought.

Lessons learned but so very dearly bought.
Isolated mind my safety and protective fort.

Ideas and frustrations my writings have tried to sort.
And sorted through I conclude I did it all for naught.