Slipping Through the Veil – Whispered Words Outside a Walnut Door

This piece is a strange journey within the mind of someone experiencing a slow decline of their mental faculties from aging.  I’ve taken some creative liberties as I imagine each of us having a door within our mind that separates perceived-sanity and “what lies on the other side.”  As we deteriorate, perhaps we spend more time reaching for the handle and listening to the whispered thoughts of our life, yet never turning it fully to see what lies beyond…

Slipping Through the Veil

Recollections of esoteric conversations

Whispered words with forgotten meanings

Phantom echoes; muffled and without form

Certainly poised to await deconstruction

Yet with no obvious moment of origination

Absent of focus and released from time

Voices without title, name, or place

Questioning a continuation of comparison

And without the firmness of certainty

I am unsure; not of whom but of self

My doubt a creeping confederacy

A mystery with but a few pages turned

Memories perhaps, yet without connections

Lost I’ve become; without compass or document

For understanding that which lies hidden

Expectation a requirement of copious faith

Faculties employed in an act of self-persuasion

Only in success shall I decree without wavering

My mind sound in all sense of functionality

The defense mechanism of sanity

Prevents the swinging door of madness

Closed as it is, for the moment, yet within my sight

Its worn brass handle a constant reminder

Considerations many, in all my chosen years

The precipice of what is and what could be

And yet those fears distilled until disbanded

Each approach ending with my retreat

Eyes focused with unmatched precision

Stiff hinges anchoring the aged walnut

Heavy swing pins stifled from articulation

A door without passage or space at the seams

Closed, at least until a decision to open it

The furthest hallway of an aging mind

Where truth is often painted with confusion

Reality a figment of that which bears no harvest

Barren orchards of things long forgotten

Growth resigned to rising fear and further distortion

And the evolution of that which is auditory

Calving with an accompaniment of imagery

Faint glimpses of shadowy figures in motion

Splintered fragments of sacred moments

Or nothing; yet presented as significant

Decisions looming without divine guidance

Deeper into the crevice of uncertainty

The texture of a slow decline developing

Reassurances no longer valid connexions

As the world on the outside starts to merge

With the reality of the deterioration

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R J Schwartz

I write about everything and sometimes nothing at all.I'm fascinated by old things, rusty things, abandoned places, or anywhere that a secret might be unearthed.I'm passionate about history and many of my pieces are anchored in one concept of time or another.I've always been a writer, dating back to my youth, but the last decade has been a time of growth for me.I'm continually pushing the limitations of vocabulary, syntax, and descriptive phrasing.

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