That fond fuzzy crackle
bandwidth received by transistor
last hurrah of our analog innocence
Low fidelity echoes
like candles lighting
a thousand darkened rooms
A time before digitized beacons
mocked us from the night stand
We now build our own soundtracks
in the hours between the sun
and looking out my window
the landscape hasn’t changed
The year of childhood’s end
by the calendar
and still more in your heart
At the end of innocence Christmas still comes
yet dull and without mirth
The high water mark left bare
as tail lights faded from view in a fog
A fire still burning at the hearth
The ornaments still adorned
Left alone
and for the first time unsure
Watching west from picture windows
Pink and violet hues painted on the belly
of looming winter cloud banks
Until the final shade of night drawn down
Underwhelmed we search that common ingredient
and resolve to go on sleeping
There are times that must succumb
Recline in the pool
in wet corporeal surrounding
or just behind the eyes
that close and picture
faces reflected in a puddle
Gilmour’s chords break easy upon the ears
while the light within is formed
from some distant age
when you were someone else
Tempted to the soothing embrace
of comfortably numb
The axiomatic cocoon
where numbness provides the solace
Easier to feel nothing
when there is too much in that well
Comfort is our cage we build
to contain the beast within
Or walls erected to bar
that which we choose to ignore
In a new age
recalibrated for inertia
Calendars remain the same
guideposts to navigate the bubble
Set to fixed points in the heavens
Rituals formed in comfort zones
and rote recitations
Bourgeois trappings linger
Holiday themed tissue box covers
now merely landscape
like smoke stained wallpaper
to be stripped from this surface
after you’re gone
No surrender without acknowledgement
simply walk away and wander
Abandoned the futile quest
to recapture the magic of childhood
not found but once in a lifetime
Unable to recreate
more comfort is found
in an ordinary day
The first cold of November
The wind no longer at their backs
Strange light casts dun shadows
upon black asphalt seas
Puddled oil’s iridescent stains
survive the morning showers
like the rainbowed oyster’s shell
Beyond the gate to the park greens
Well worn path to the exposed heath
She speaks in the wind
He smiles and nods
The face that says
I can’t hear a bloody word
but I’ll pretend
to show that it still matters
She smiles and nods
The face that says
She knows, but it’s alright
Now lets go home and put on the kettle
