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Hollowed
Folder:
Poems The iron gate green,
Rust flecked swings open,
On reluctant hinges,
Visitors come seldom.
Animals caged at the threshold,
Announce the insanity within,
Neurotic and shuffling,
Circles unending.
The Living Room is lined with a dozen and more beds,
The bedridden clinging fast to life,
Claws dug in deep,
Dazed eyes, exhausted from the fight.
Walking through the room,
Eyes latch unto me, like leeches,
A despair made palpable,
A hunger for Life so virile,
Born from being close to Death.
Up the stairs, I fly,
Unto a landing,
Flanked by doors wood,
Adorned with grill metal,
Cages from which, one, if patient may hear
Cries muffled, of man near to beast
But one of the doors are ajar,
Stepping into darkness, I'm trepid,
I make out my father,
In a room bare of decorum,
Except for faint aroma of excrement,
Seated, legs folded,
On the stone floor a faded red,
Beside a bed,
on which a silhouette of a figure,
Stick thin, gibbering softly as a babe might,
Fast asleep.
I join my father on the cold,
And we sit for a time,
To watch her at peace,
Before chaos rears again its ugly head,
In those waking moments.
My father turns to me and asks,
"Shall we leave?"
To which I say....
Nothing
