Memory

All my friends are ghosts to me
In the past they elude detection
Touching my words and all my thoughts
All wrapped in their eyes and all that they said
Now I do not know them
They no more own my affections
Than I my future
But here they come to me
Here we are one again
In the dismal darkening of memory

All my life has been a game
That I have now played beyond its end
Nothing to fear for me beyond
The confines of this benumbing prison
Do not fear my words
And every end of which you hear tell
Listen to a Cuban melody
Commit it to heart like memory

All my thoughts are like actions
They speak more than my words shall ever tell
It’s nothing you could hear
But by my own judgements I shall be tried
The severity of which has lead me here
Out across the fields tonight
Away from the noise and away from the hope
That I used to confine just to memory.