circumscribed

the day shrank to a small thing
and it rained and rained

my heart shrank to a pitted
core, like a peach stone

none of the fabric would do
what I wanted it to

and I lost myself in corridors
by candle-light

some days there is no reason
and the mansions of the heart

are vast as all the doors open
one-by-one

you can lose yourself in there -
that endless warren, with no map

those endless stairs and levels,
the silent halls

I wandered there for hours
staring at the mirrors as I passed

but the place was empty, silent,
and my footsteps loud

my light wavered at every
corner, but yet another corridor

and endless doors stretched away
into the dark

I know the minotaur is there,
somewhere, deep at the centre

but I never reach it - the
place of choice, the all or

the nothing - always the dust
is lifted in tiny spirals by the

floating air, and I hear voices
calling that I matter, some time

some where, there will be an
answer - in all the silent city

of the dead;  the hand at my back

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