Some things matter

Some things matter

More than

Blood flow

Bring me down

Why don’t you

Hang me low

As low as the town

In the valley

The old streets

Overgrown

With past lives

I am overawed

By the loss

Of direction

It has bettered

My battered self

A reckless prodigal

In a wanton world.

Since last

We met

The fight has gone,

It left with little

To commend it.

The past is another country

Gone to ruin

Mouldering away

Cheek by jowl

With the old days

Before they were ghosts

Pale reminders.

Lost lives

Lack collateral

Unaccounted

In the margins

Of history.

Rewritten on post-it notes

Stuck on a fridge

As a reminder

To bring flowers.

I would send a card

But nobody

Does that anymore.

Another time

A different place

Before the rewrite

Covered the meaning

In glory.