Ectovisit

It’s been a solemn summer
and a paper-thin bravery
has once again been vanquished
by my foolish curiosity.

So, I have haplessly returned
to search for my ghosts,
hoping to find them friendlier
torpid, malleable.

I find a verge to park
at the parish boundary,
my intention,
to walk into the village
like the hero-stranger of a
spaghetti western film.

This somewhat overstates my bravado,
so I button up my coat,
such flimsy armour that
I feel I may need this time.

I’ll walk amongst them
stealthily,
no car-borne voyeurism this time,
I’ll breathe their air
touch their walls signs railings benches,
ears keening for their ancient voices.

Pausing at the ancient heavy iron sign
I stroke and trace the village name,
the same is etched within me
somewhere deep.

A nostalgic waft of hand wrought leather,
portent from the past
curls its weightless fingers around my shoulder
as if to usher me to a vacant seat
thus, my séance commences.

It’s the dark childhood alleys
that hold most fear, oblique
secret crooked
a game of snakes and ladders
that delivers me all too quickly
toward lurking daemons
that besiege my destination.

Tumbling drunkenly through the
oppressively narrow
crumbling tunnels
finger-pointing flashbacks, paint-spatter
the graffiti of my youth
my meagre conquests
my many failures,
a seedy peeling role of honour
that is already too much to bear.

© Graham Sherwood 08/2017