Walls

It loomed before me

a wall I’d only glimpsed before

built with bricks

I’d stepped over

in the past

It blocked all passage

barrier to where I wished to be

an obstacle that reached

as wide as high

and had done all along

It would not move

I could not shift it

mortar bound, its rigid face

growled down

and all around

 

And so I climbed

 

I found the footholds

the nooks and crannies

I stood abreast its height

and saw for miles

And there were others

at either side of

finding ways to scale

to reach that place

beyond the wall

And high upon division’s altar

hand in hand, we made a chain

we linked and found that 

on the other side of walls

we were the same

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What If?

What if every place you’d ever lived could tell a story;

A recounting of your life by many walls?

What if every word you’d said and deed you’d done there

Were embedded in the rooms and in the halls?

 

What if one day when you wanted to remember

All the living that you’d done in houses past,

You put glass to wall and stories fairly poured forth?

Would you recognise the days and years all passed?

 

If a record of your days in each was written

And portrayed poetically in film or book

Would you read, survey, enjoy all that you saw there?

Be happy so to have another look?

 

Or would walls be haunted by memories that maimed there

And bleed distempered paint into the rooms?

Would the years and months and days be reflective of your dreams

Or a nightmare lived, encased in fetid tombs?

 

What if those you’d known and loved were all still present

In the fabric of the buildings that you’ve known?

Would their eyes be wide like yours at the secrets all revealed

At the manner of your ways not always shown?

 

What if where you lived right now had all new plaster

And a sheath to shelter brick from broken tithes?

Would you take the chance to start afresh and try there

To edit and improve upon your life?