It’s funny how the most disparate incidents can trigger emotion. Some years ago the Salvation Army had a TV ad running that depicted an old man in a torn singlet looking into a dirty, cracked mirror. He was looking at himself as a young man, wasting his life on alcohol and drugs. It touched me and so I turned to my trusty pen. This poem was the result.
Who is he
Who is this person that I see
standing there in front of me?
What is it that this stranger knows?
He wears my face, my eyes, my clothes.
Why has he come to this place?
Perhaps to show my other face;
the face of hope, the face of fear
Whenever I sense another near.
For I will always ever show
only what others need to know,
others live and love and laugh
and I am always in the draught.
Alone at least in my mind
never ever to feel the kind
of one who calls himself friend
I must travel to the end
of my days in ways of solitude
never part of the multitude
called humankind, who band together
caring, sharing with each other
It’s danger to show emotion
lest strangers get the notion
that you care or even fear
their approach, to be so near,
to speak, to say what is real
or worse still, say what you feel
for chance that you may offend
a person who could be your friend.
Even when I was a boy
I never felt the pain, the joy
of sharing my life with another,
not even with my poor dear mother
It was as if I was apart,
never feeling with my heart
the pleasure, pain or tribulation
of life’s eternal stimulation.
Why is it that I cannot feel
the joy of love, my senses reel
solitude is cold and silent
a bitter, bitter sweet torment
Who is this person that I see
standing there in front of me?
Is he conscience come to guide me
in matters right, perhaps to hide me
from the light of human ways
so that I may pass my days
in sweet content, but on my own
never more to bemoan
my inability to live or share
emotions I believe aren’t there
within my deepest darkest soul
I am but part and never whole.
What is it that this stranger knows,
he wears my face, my eyes, my clothes?
He is recognised and seen
as the person I have been.
Why has he come to this place?
perhaps to show my other face
the face he has shows him as I
If he is me, then who am I?
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