Bullied this way and that

Bullied this way and that

Tossed by the swirl and bluster

Of an off-shore breeze

Fooled by the coquettish curl

Of an autumn zephyr

Torn from the straight road home

By a mean South-Wester

Lost to the night

Passed by a lamplit window

With a weeded old widow

Hunched in a chair on a porch

In the shadow

Still waiting for her husband

To step from the train

Dipped my eyes

Afraid of seeing the hurt

The look of sadness I see again

In the pall of the moon

Barely visible behind

A funeral cloud

I am under a shroud

Cold to the touch

Lost to the night

Where the old ghosts moan

In protest at their susceptibility

To the brightness of light

Wailing in apprehension of the dawning

Fearing another day

Subject to invisibility

I have seen the night

Too many times

Left to wander

Lost to the world

Drifted on moonbeams

Beyond the eyes of men

Become one with the dark

On a bench in the park

At the top of the stairs

Waiting for no one

Lost in dreams

As wild as the wind

On a lonely night

At the edge of sight

When nothing is real

And nothing feels right.