I am taken back to that old house
I lived in seventy years ago.
I can only see it in my mind
Or in my memory inspired dreams
Because it no longer even stands.
I replay 'camps' in the garden
And cook wild blackberries
In a tin atop a secret bonfire.
I foster the baby chicks again.
Little fluffy yellow bundles
Huddling together under a lamp

Chirping innocently to one another.
There's 'Prince' my dog that 'ran away'
And I see him walking on a lead
The other side of the busy road.
They lied about where he went.
Today I think they were cruel.
Magnetically I'm drawn to my bedroom.
The room where I was visited
At night by various elementals
Who filled me with terror and fear.
And where I'd visit the orange planet
Where my thoughts were speeded up
And a kind of numbness filled my chest
To cause me panic and distress.
Sometimes, paralysed in sleep,
I feel that night-time dread again,
The thoughts that rush away too fast,
Or the fight to regain my limbs to flee,
And then, I open up my eyes,
And be thankful where I am today;
Feel my wife beside me in the bed.
I wonder why I go there?
When that house always felt cold:
A place devoid of something needed
To prevent it being a place of echos.
Perhaps it is just as well
It was bulldozed and ground to dust.

© Griffonner 2024