Grey as the ashes
and the fog,
the gaps we’ve made
between our reason
and our fear.
The tremulous.
Given wide eye panoramas;
whole visions,
never split asunder.
Glimpses of the consequences,
the envy and the ire,
almost clairvoyance;
but the foot still misses a stair
and in the monochrome
of tempered spirit,
the hand finds no purchase,
for in killing every sure thing,
we exist now in a world of ghosts.
Confidante laid waste by indiscretion.
Our sensibilities betrayed
by hungering debutantes
that seek the rare and the exotic.
Perfumed of cardamom and grave wax,
scintillating and poisonous
and calling out
to strange harbours in the fog.
Granted,
our temptations reft our caution
from our foresight
and conjecture wrote in large, black print
of the demise of measured candor.
So, with the canary
now out if his cage,
we stumble
and collide;
trying to catch a bird
in the grey haze of new culture,
continually issued in abundance
from the cold, blue lips
of young initiates.
Compromise and dalliance
are habit forming,
but with vision such as ours,
narrow,
where once we saw the curvature of the Earth.
Dullness,
apathy,
melancholy.
We step blindly in the direction of half familiar voices,
arms out before us,
hoping to touch some warm and comforting thing.
Where do we find safety in this half-light?
In this fog?
In this ghost-world?
In the grey?
HG -2016
