Return to 1997 AUTUMN Index
by Jonathan Day
There's a man you know
Only he has no name,
You see him on occasion,
Ignore him, perhaps glimpse him again.
Sometimes his skin is black.
His thin arms show ripples
His eyes say nothing
As he carries the world upon his back.
Or sometimes he is old
With a stick of finest birch
Struggling to go forward,
Careful not to trip or lurch.
Or sometimes he has worries
Permanently etched in his face
Ever wondered how the lines
Were carved in any case?
Or is it a woman,
falling from a bus
Blinded by a love
Foraging in the past.
Or a man playing a guitar
smoking in the street
An image of a idea
You never want to keep.
Don't remember.
None of it is real.
It's a man you don't know
And never will.
Only his name is spelt as yours
And his world is much the same
In the darkness of the night
Dream and breath his pain.