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JoeC's original poetry and photos about life and all things under the sun.

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Friday, February 9, 2018


Gun Shot - Brian's Ghost

Brian's ghost living inside my hovel wall,
Why did he so suddenly have to go?
How did a novel lad get in there at all?
Only the wending wind and God knows,
Only the mending sky saw him leave,
Shrouded by the trending autumn mist so it goes,
As September dropped her coloured leaves,
All those brave memories that were his to tell,
When my friend Brian still lived and breathed.
Mixing with the fragrant earth as he fell,
Rambling roots collecting bits and pieces of him now,
While the mystic rain falls like tear drops,
While ambling clouds fear all the what and how,
Reaching for that rambling ceiling where living truth stops,
Now Brian's reeling ghost appears sometimes,
Frigid and weeping upon my dank and dripping roof,
Reflecting all those rigid things living spoke of in rhymes,
All those secret thoughts checkered death has kept so aloof,
Wondering why my young boyhood friend had to bleed and die,
So Brian's ghost still dwells hidden within my painted wall,
Why a bullet found its fatal mark leaving his face so bloodied and awry.
Haunting moans in that suffering void with Brian's ghostly call,
Waiting for his angel to gently grasp his spectre hand,
Marveling as the twinkling stars graze a warping sky,
Lead him from this wispy grieving place to a holy land,
Witnessing the blessed sun rising by and by,
After all these phantasmic years while so many of us cried,
Knowing spectral ghosts appear as they so often try,
By and by when all our reticent tears have finally dried,
Calling to the living reminding us of how we fail and fall,
Imagining new ways and brighter days in a happier light,
Leaving behind once and for all that thin intrepid wall,
Where nothing including ghostly death ever felt quite right,
Summer died with its coloured tone reflecting Brian's dying call.

2 comments:

Olwen's sister said...

Hauntingly, sadly beautiful Can't put into words what this poem stirs. Poor Brian.

JoeC said...

Yes, my poor young friend Brian. Unfortunately Brian shot himself (accidentally we were told)in September 1973. Brian had been one of my best friends, living just down the street from my family home. Brian was only twenty when he died, but as we all know tragedy happens on this earthly plane. I still think of him these many years later. I can't help but wonder how his life would have gone if he had not died that September day.