Escape

observations on the sadness of age

When the silence is as taut as a violin string

the rest awaits as you climb past the invitation

of an open window, your day in shopping bags

that redden the joints of your hands, as if you

wait helpless at a busy junction, the heavy trucks that

throw warmth and grit in your face, 

this is graceless, like worn slippers under a hospital bed

or an unread letter full of secrets, next to a glass full

of whiteness, rooms full of old cameras and shavers,

as if everything could be restarted, not just this

ring of concerned faces and mumbles at doorways,

You cannot leave as an angel, you are full of broken glass.

Reviews

[Rosalind Gale]

Dear Leslie,
Thank you for this poem. Enigmatic yet at the same time incredibly forthright and brimming with emotive imagery. I enjoy your poetry immensely.
Rosalind
-x-

[Ed Hart]

yes, it's the hardest thing in the world, trying to sweep up the broken glass on the inside...i see you're writing with a scalpel these days...top drawer

[michael.c.m]

This work is among the best I have read here, thus far. The juxtaposed imagery, the disassociated angst - these words beg publishing.

[Dr. Wood ?]

wonderful piece of poetry...I am 61...a mere chicken, my 92 yr. old Mother says. But I don't feel like a chicken..more like a pot boiler

[MOON]

Haunting piece of writing as they say old age is not easy , illness wose. Very descriptive.

[emmajoy]

How sadly explicit and undoubtedly, so close to truth. Yet somehow your poem has converted the theme into frustrated acceptance rather than bitter anger but then, that's how it has to be. These are considered words, words to mull over ..

[Ruth]

Wow...so much emotion woven into this piece, left me breathless!
Beautifully rendered love, fabulous imagery and pace xoxo

[w]

I enjoyed reading this piece. I have nothing more to say on it.