Colin F. Jones

THE FIFTH ERA

~1 ~

In a land of youth I stand frail and shattered,
Mostly forgotten as old people are,
Into the lost past goes all that to me might have mattered.
On the edge of the future I can’t see very far.
Who am I in this torn and tortured body?
Confusing my efs talking through fast shrinking gums.
Concentration is lost leaving effort fruitless and shoddy,
Silent and rusted stand the once commendable guns.
Yet I must walk this pathway that leads only to doom,
I must follow the ever increasing incline of decline,
Like the flower once admired now losing its bloom,
Like the dead star not yet lost of it’s brilliant shine.
I will be bones where my Mother and Father now rest,
Beyond which there seems not to be further conquest.

~ 2 ~

Pain runs through my veins like the blood still red,
Flowing through narrowed tunnels to a rich beating heart,
Every morning it wakens me from my uncomfortable bed,
And given thirty minutes or so I make a new start.
There’s my wife who is sick and Sparks my little Dog,
Television, computer, Smartphone and the Android,
Beyond the reach of my antennae, more than I can log,
Leaving me frustrated sidetracked and mostly annoyed.
The day dawns and dies and then dawns again,
Just on and on and on a repetition of the same thing.
Freedom in reality being a process only in name,
For not even the great eagle spreads freely her wing.
I have lost the ability to be whomever I was,
like the throat of a crooner unable to sing.

~ 3 ~

What I have at my disposal though its cells fast deplete,
While All things are doomed this one thing is not,
Is a mind that may one day on itself choose to cheat,
But will always retain the one important thing it has got.
And where ever it is, be it in my soul or my heart,
The precious ingredient is Love though I can’t love describe,
It is in a decent mans mind an indelible part,
Containing all that is good established in pride.
The union of people, since the human race began,
Gave life to the seed that the first flower could bloom,
The first tribe the first nation the first child of the clan,
The first spark for the fire in the shared common room.
I will have been part of that without contribution of seed,
Though I failed in my conquest to satisfy true need.

~ 4 ~

I cannot look forward therefore I must look back,
And seek out myself that we can positively meet,
For I have become all the things that once I did lack
I need to look now where I once stood on confident feet.
Anger; we learn; use it without good effect,
It is something that in others we sincerely reject,
Thus painful is the aftermath, when rage takes hold,
Leaving us regretting the failure to maintain control.
Yet if we choose to listen to the views of another,
Though we know we know more than the speaker might know
And not with our own thoughts Endeavour to smother,
The speculation and opinions that inevitably flow.
We will have practiced patience to the ultimate measure,
And allowed in our minds the seeds of wisdom to grow.

~ 5 ~

In order to identify the truth we must recognize the lie,
The stain of evil in goodness must be seen to erase,
Pain is often unseen when the eye doesn’t cry,
But the sun is still there on those overcast days.
You look forward to that which I have been given,
To what I’ve already seen that has passed into time.
By ambition and ego, by the challenge you’re driven,
And I watch knowing all of it has been wastefully mine.
A lifetime we spend searching for what deep within us,
Is there at the start for we possess it from birth,
For many other emotions through life overcome us,
Confusing the pathway orbiting this earth.
Tis love that I speak of, linking loyalty to truth,
Defining the value of trust by giving it worth.