Drawing by Judith Wolfe
Chris Major

Poems


      CAUGHT

      I peer through the bars
      and witness the sad state.
      A member of a proud species
      wandering aimlessly
      its allotted area,
      pacing out boredom
      'til the next delivered meal.
      She pads occasionally
      to the bars,
      stares sadly,
      recalls times when,
      free,
      she roamed near
      and far,
      master of a destiny
      cruelly shrunk to this:
      a body caught in
      the trap of old age
      and the company of a budgie......

      Coma

      A world evaporated,
      shrunk to a single room,
      life a shimmering screen
      rippling a series
      of peaks and troughs.
      Some bring bright scenes:
      parties, weddings, christenings,
      hope to disperse the darkness;
      others,
      stiff awkward sentences
      to lever, jemmy an unseen lock.

      Mostly we sit
      and wait,
      for a sign,
      for news,
      a chink of light
      widening in the gap
      between will and won't.........


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