Village Folk

We were on our way to Forgotten Country; a land of misplaced dreams-

We never knew what was going to happen; only Heaven did.

 

It was the beginning of a new month, in the year two thousand, zero hundred and seventeen. The keeper rang his presence aloud in the street while the rest of the village folk slept in the warm darkness. A lone man prayed in the surrounding distance as the air sat low and still. Everyone sweated on his or her bed- February was ending; March would arrive tomorrow.

He sat at his desk, awriting. There was a story lurking somewhere in his head, a face wouldn’t leave just yet. In the surrounding darkness- save for his two-bulb lit room- and the fingers of Beethoven playing in the background, he wrote. And he wrote. And he wrote. There was no end to his scribbling, just as there was no end to his thinking.

Bang! Bang! The sound of clapping wood echoed loudly into the distance, cursed noise

The journey had only just begun;

Like stalks, we swayed and swayed in the quiet breeze

I let the words dance freely, waiting patiently for one after one to drop,

One after one

Fits and starts, without beginnings or endings

It was Forgotten Country

Of imaginings and possibilities

Or impossibilities, latter being more plausible

A long while till black skies roll over

Cycles, beginning as a thousand before

Without apparent newness, without regard for pattern differentiation

Forgotten history remembered in scattered dreams-

She could never bear to,

We always remembered

In steady cadence we tossed and turned

Recycled air of primordial times

Antediluvian, before this vast world came to be

We breathe the same system of life and death

Evenings and mornings

Same dreams we dreamed night after night

Fantastic visions; we knew where to find them

Work a backbreaking day and fall soon after

 

The lone man at his desk pondered hard and long

Furrows burrowing deep across his brows

Find a man who would refuse sleep over existence

Was there anything else to him?

I have lived a second life

I remember it as though I never lived it

Away, apart from me yet all within

I was all one, years after years

I looked at the world through another’s eyes

As though through a looking glass

Yes, looking glass

Till I fell down many holes, many times over

It was time after time, age after age

With many a dozen bits peeled after each birth

Some say I had put off a man and put on another

I say what absurdity?

Still it is dark outside

All village folk sound in their beds

Except the lone man at his writing desk

Looking glass

One’s life and not another’s

Could any definitions be given?

What say he stops all and goes to sleep too

Like all the other village folk

Refuse existence over sleep

Time after none other?

For all the parts of him screamed remembrance

Like there thought left unpeeled

Raw, ripe

Unvisited?

In a neighbour’s house, someone stirred-

It is two o’ five in the surrounding darkness

Many hours till dawn

Many hours and another cycle

 

There are pictures on the wall

I see them

One dot, a smudge and a streak of black

Images dancing like a shaman around his bonfire

The mind is a bonfire, and there are always people dancing

Meaning is elusive

Like a grain of sand among other grains of sand

Raging hordes of thoughts like a barrage of bees

Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing

The lone man is close to madness

There are whispers

Tomorrow will begin again

Like it never did a thousand yesterdays before

Tomorrow will begin again-

Tomorrow is elusive

Vague word intended for deceit, for trickery

The man is going madder still

As the question lingers

Was there meaning in the surrounding blackness?

Was there meaning in the surrounding blackness?

Was there meaning in the surrounding blackness?

 

At the end of the second month in the year two thousand, zero hundred and seventeen the lone man collected his thoughts and went to sleep. He would continue his thinking and writing in Forgotten Country.

Tomorrow remains elusive.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

A true story for many in the poem my friend.
"At the end of the second month in the year two thousand, zero hundred and seventeen the lone man collected his thoughts and went to sleep. He would continue his thinking and writing in Forgotten Country.
Tomorrow remains elusive."
The above lines. Solid ending to a powerful poem. I love real places and real history.
Coyote