The wallpaper’s peeling off the walls

Paint is flaking from the ceiling 

My carpet is wearing thin

Turning grey in patches 

Brown spots upon my hands, my face

Old age is slowly revealing…

Yet my mind is sharp

Refined like that of an aged patrician

Understanding these times we live in 

Navigating shrewdly, wise, silently 

Seeing with my ears-Hearing with my eyes

Feel like an ancient magician…

A sturdy vessel, creaking deck

The wind has turned

Set sail for home

Hold full of treasure

Pirates of the Caribbean

Never lived this long

To enjoy a life of leisure…

Davy Jones locker calls us all

At times we don’t expect 

I have lived a life I love

Paying the price-Often shipwrecked 

Writing to patch my sails

The heart of an ordinary extraordinary man

A breathing contradiction…

Life not about places, spaces

But of conversations, chance meetings 

Fools wander-Wise men travel

For many it unravels

No skin in this game

The Pleiades is calling me home

Beckoning my soul… 

For those I truly love

I love deeply 

‘It’s over the hill’

Shouts the wag

The promised land! 

I gave up that search long ago

As the walls came tumbling down 

The village idiot the wisest man

Stumbling around town 

Wearing secondhand robes

Once donned by Judges 

A cake box worn as a crown….. 

Mark C Bolton

April 2024

Image by TC