Cane Hill - Anne Clark

Here

Upon these ghostly shadows

Of men and women

There are no smiles

Singly

They mingle

With the greyness of the walls

And at strange angels

They travel on

To nowhere

Each a nucleus

Of sadness and despair

Small

Or no conversation

Passes their cigarette-stained lips

They sit

The lonely ones

Sitting eternally

In institutions

That have become their eyes

That have become their arms

Their legs

They are empty now

Just shells moving back and forth

Upon a shore

Of some uncharted beach

Up steep green hills

They linger

Like the darknest thoughts

That push them selves

Into your mind

You cannot question them

For they will not answer you

They

Are our deepest fears