Memory Music

it’s in my blood,

this ache to return

to have a poke around, 

see what’s changed

it was my home once 

I lived here, was born here

I flit back occasionally,

a moth to a flame 

chaotic unplanned visits 

with scant regularity

  ~                                  

“don’t be concerned, 

 it will not harm you

 it’s only me pursuing 

 something I’m not sure of”

~

then my Libra takes over

weighing things in the

emotional balance

you shouldn’t have returned

you left for a better life

outside, somewhere else

don’t you understand

you don’t belong here

~

“tell me over and over 

and over again my friend”

~

so, I walk the lanes slowly

for fear of waking memory ghosts

asleep behind the russet stones

~

“listen do you want to know a secret”

~

they slumber these long years

a dormant cast 

museum exhibits,

faces only I can see, wait for me

~

“every time that you walk in the room”

~                                    

the old friends I see

are now truly old but 

recall only their young faces

 blood brothers I once knew

played with, laughed with, 

cried with, would have died for

walks seemed longer then

trees taller, roads safer,

days warmer

~

“watching and waiting 

for a friend to play with” 

~                  

innocence long gone

past girlfriends gone

taken as wives, now mothers

old adversaries 

some long dead, 

now benign as am I

old warriors seeing sense

teenage vendettas cold

 let sleeping dogs lie

~

“first there were heartaches, 

then there were tears”

~

I stand head bowed

bad places, blood on the road

a phone box, a bus stop

an ale jug, a tea towel

a chip shop, a moped

two lying dead

~

“Oh lord, please don’t let 

me be misunderstood”

~

these days I walk the lanes 

slowly, there is too much to see

 the music too loud

*

© Graham R Sherwood 11/22