avalon9

       I ’ m sinking and I feel the rootlets scratch My arms as if I walked along through briars Or falling down a manhole to the drains On minute passed - and more - just sliding by I worm my way through time between the stones Down in among the microbes and the grubs And squeezed between the hard place and the rock Then - nothing - falling down through space And landed where ? On some forgotten shoreline in the dusk A river runs beside the shore in flood The hungry spectres massing on the shore Their hollow eyes are looking into air So many and so many and so few A ferryboat is loading while I watch Its packing them together like sardines They ’re looking out  with eyes that do not see They climb aboard As anywhere is better than to stay I looked across the river in the gloom Where they were going , I could hardly see Their sorry shapes had given up all care I don’t know if the nothingness was worse Or feeling nothing be