I feel myself withdrawing 

Head bowed, hands held together 

Behind my back 

Slowly walking off stage 

Into the wings 

Wanting no part of it…

 

An unfinished poem 

Not a performance or oration 

Just an empty vessel 

The war has finally stopped inside my head!

It’s over, finished 

Left with craters 

Filled with blood, water, death 

Was it worth it?…

 

For what? To satisfy my ego 

To prove my manhood worthy 

Alone now in no man’s land of the soul 

Where the breeze blows softly 

Birds sing quietly 

Clouds dim the sunlight…

 

I know my time is up

Exposed as a fraud 

Accused by my demons 

Always a brown envelope 

Never the birthday card 

Soundtrack by Arvo Pärt…

 

Strolling through boyhood woods

Only in my dreams 

Amongst the blackberry bushes 

That stain my hands like blood

From words uttered carelessly 

Yet strangely I feel free 

For I have discovered myself…

 

A small boy who loved cats 

Who was sucked into the machine 

The hay baler of the lost 

A choirboy with no voice 

Somehow given a gift 

To write poems 

Exposing his own futility…

 

Knowing many will scream 

As they stone me mercilessly 

Believing it’s God’s work 

To silence the waves of their misfortune 

That crash upon shores of reality…

 

Desire assassinated love many centuries ago

Leaving grace, mercy, patience mortally wounded 

Dying on the battlefield of now!

I will grasp this moment 

A teardrop of Time 

Forever to run down the cheek of eternity…

 

That is not measured by ghosts 

Or judged by virtue 

But is found in a grain of sand 

Most of all it’s a daisy

Held in a small child’s hand…

 

Mark C Bolton, October 2025