Props

Posted on 22/10/2006 at 7:35 AM in Poetry - Post Comment

PROPS

Cigarettes were handy...

A prop in situations....

Something to do with one's hands.

oooOooo

What is left in life

When all the props

 Are gone from the human edifice?

When parents are no longer there

To guide us, to protect us

To rescue us, even from ourselves?

When lovers are no longer there

To calm us, soothe us,

To help ease the solitude we share?

When religion is no longer there

To guard us, lead us,

To distract us from our very basest fears?

What of the multitude of props,

The little bits of busy-ness,

The many little gods we have

That soothe our seething minds?

One morning I shall wake to find

That none of them are there.

That nothing fits beside us

In this slice of solitude we own.

That the years ahead are there

For me to fill or kill

In whatever way I choose.

There is truth in this aloneness

But it is the death to come

that gives us courage

Just to look at what we are.

22.10.06