A Moment of Deja Vu

Photo by Johannes Plenio on Unsplash

It is hazy like a threadbare moon
yet when the open dream
of my past comes calling I hold
its whispers as tenderly
as any wounded bird.
This need to see the soul’s mechanics —
how embers rise &
move from life to life presses
like the mob in today’s scene
which gathers like
a hydra, seven heads and one
mind, to bang on
a cottage door where
a traitor hides his
thirty pieces of silver

Smugglers all, they ask
if he betrayed them
to the soldiers
& talk of
trying him the old way —
rules are set, a candle is lit,
& burns towards
a guilty confession.

This poor man is summarily
marched to some windy Cornish
cliff, thrown from the headland
after his Judas coin
& with that the curtains close
once more — the sun comes up
my history disappears
in a puff of filigree vapour.

Copyright Simon Heathcote