Dementia and Other Poems

By Alan Ford

Dementia

I am in mourning. I have
lost you although you are still here.
I see your bewildered look,
your confusion. We are separated
by the death of thought.

You resemble a closed book
so I cannot turn the pages. There
are no notes, no explanations
in your margin.
Our life together is unread.

You lie there in a fog of words,
as if you are learning a new language.
Yet you cannot speak my name. And you
cannot recognize my face.
Our future is unspoken.

As you age you return to childhood.
As you move further away from me
I cannot imagine where you are
or why you have gone.
I just look for what remains.

For now I see you pace through my life
you stride back and forth. Are you
searching for something you cannot find?
A feeling. An intuition. Are you conscious
of the person you used to be?
In the reflection of your eyes do you
recognize yourself?

For time aches in the space between us,
longing to be filled. We live in
dead days and empty nights.
I want to embrace you but
I have gone from being your lover to your carer.

Our old life together is now over. But
I will be here until I am no longer needed.
I have taught you so little. But there is
so much I have learned about myself.
Dementia

A House Through Time

In every city there is a house
re-living time.
There’s no blue plaque to
honour a past life,
only a family tree of strangers.

If you ring the bell and
pass into the hall you
may hear laughter, you may hear cries,
music may echo through the years
to the sound of lives passing.

There are different pictures
on the walls to hang life on.
In the lapse of time
rooms are re-arranged
by people who have never met.

An open window hides its past.
Inside you will find love and logic,
wit and wisdom, new life and old.
For babies were born
born and died here.

Where have they gone?
Those forgotten faces, forsaken friends
guests and gossip and
missing memories. No one knows.
There are no photos of people not coming back.

Today the house still stands.
People have trodden the path of history
travelling through obscurity.
Those who have been before.
And those who are yet to come.

I Wasn’t Always Old

I wasn’t always old.
I can still feel yesterday’s love
like a wounded memory I can recall.

My life is not a blank cheque
My identity hasn’t been lost.
And my signature is still the same.

I’m not like a torn newspaper
with the date missing . So I’m not
a relic of age only of experience.

I know I am years from home.
But I remember our conversations
about attitudes that have changed.

The only thing that separates us is the past.
So remember that tomorrow
is always waiting.