The old fool - a poem by Chris Zachariou

The London Yellow Circle Line 

I am a prisoner on the Circle Line.
On the train, there are all kinds of people.
Many are asleep, some stare into space,
and some grin like startled fools.

Is it possible that I am a ghost? I wonder.
I seem to live in two worlds and perhaps
I am a tourist in both.

All I ever wanted was to read books
by D H Lawrence and poetry by Lorca.
People say this is odd, they laugh
and call me weird to my face.

There is no hope left for me anymore.
I drift along without design,
searching in vain for beauty with
no plans, compasses, or charts.
Wisdom came to me too late—
some even may say it never did at all.

Sometimes I scream-
‘Please, someone stop the train,
rewind the clock, I need to go back.
Can you not see I've nowhere else to go?’
But no one listens.

‘You can't,’ I hear the timekeeper guard shriek,
‘All the doors are now shut to old fools like you.’