The Forbidden Fence

Part I

 

The old rustic fence, listing at the end of the garden

Looking forbidding, yet tantalising.

When I was very young the fence was too high

Maybe not so brilliantly painted

Now naturally, against the sky, tainted.

 

Tufts of rough grass, enticing a tumbling foot

Looking innocent, from a distance

Like the wall the other side of the fence

I thought one day I shall look over

To find out what was on the other side

 

Many times I visited the end of the garden

Hardly noticing what lies there, at the end

Many times the feeling of foreboding

But never enough motive to investigate

My thoughts ran further that mere gates

My dreams of the beyond were with me

Day and night.

 

My wandering mind could try to leap the fence

But always it was higher than it might

Seem from a great distance

I summoned an extra helping of steeled nerves

On more than one occasion

Only to find myself in an invisible cage upon

Which set a force that would repel my efforts.

 

The rains washed the colour to dismal grey

The wood was tattered, felt like clay

Splinters finally invaded my hands

As I tried my luck at survey

But the years hadn’t destroyed the forbidden

Secret that must surely have lain

The very other side of the shaky fences.

 

Thoughts lanced the languid days of summer

With spectres and monsters

For the imagination is never satisfied

Without a sighting of what lies beyond

The near obsession would wreak dismay

For a conjured fantasy would only delay

What really had to be done.

 

 

 

Part II

 

For over twenty five years the mystery was shelved

The fence had all but dissolved

Into micro chasms in my head

The leaden expectation invaded my dreams in bed.

Those many years later at the funeral of a thought

I clasped an empty embrace

Let forth condolences, a trace

Of sympathy to help wipe away the dark tears

The drying attracted my eyes to the street tiles

My eyes sped along geometric lines

I couldn’t hold my breath

A fire was started behind my eyes

But darkness reappeared.

 

In the following minutes as the sun raged in

I was kneeling

Cleaning a large stain from the tiles

The sun hindered

The heat hinted

The sky was red tinted.

The stain was the colour of creosote.

 

My knees chafed merrily as mourners knelt in unison

The scrubbing of stains seeming not unusual

The cleaning was a sensible way to mourn

Everyone who could see the fence

As the priest sighed prayed,

Commenced the cleaning.

 

During the half hour it took over fifty people to clean

Passers-by smiled, they offered advice

Their teeth lied we winced our apologies,

How do you explain fifty people scrubbing the pavement

Outside a church

When the sky was tinted red?

 

I paid particular attention to the detail

of the carved patterns

That lay within every forty tiles

My eyes were magnetised

As I scraped an unwary elbow against someone’s fence

The cut was shallow the blood warm, the fence old,

In licking the wound the dream was played again.

 

Like the re-releasing of Gone With The Wind

The fence was now showing on the main screen

Energy spouted into every crevice of memory

The dream

The Fence

The Foreboding –

            They had all revisted

The creosote catalyst had reacted

I’m in mourning

Incredulous

In the forbidden place.

 

The fence was warm in the dying sun

My fingers throbbed

The work having been done

My eyes were strobed

I struggled a sigh as realisation stepped in

I staggered as a new image awakened.

 

I’m on the other side of the fence...

In over thirty years of travel and dreams

The fence loomed large it seems

But now the cleaning is complete

The fence was fading in the heat

The sense of the forbidden view

Had collected a history of blue

The fence had nails

That rust in the sea air

The shiny stainless steel

Hadn’t a care

It now had to bear

The consequence

Of dull ignorance.

 

Am I standing in my dream

Or is the dream standing in me.

 

The fence won’t go away

But I’m so much bigger

Than the uttered word

That I feel ridiculous,

However could anyone be afraid

To look over the shaky fence.