Bewildered Poem by Thomas Bates

Bewildered, shown mercy -
just in time
For the closing curtain
To fall.
In water,
Out of trouble now, we held hands as
Remarkable changes made impressionistic differences
On various faces, ,
Imagined
(or otherwise) .

My face, blushed -
my space to move in, limited -
I'd met up with a certain friend
Still transient, from a distant past.

Angelina sat up with me to watch
Angels and terrific performances
On the stage of Existence in front of us.
We had both sat
In a dignified way, of sorts,
Expecting a movie of our lives
Presented to us
By the lingering flicker
Of movements.
They were joined together, playing on the reel-to-reel
revealing a further book of mysteries,
Closer now to segments of dreaming, more startling
Than the flutter of breath I felt on my shoulder.
(I saw a still-life image of a wooden bowl
Filled with various oranges
As reality became a blur.
After some moments, these memories entered into the slow
Expanse where you and I lay, entranced.
Flat back onto our backs, hearts pounding,
aware of each other, somewhere==but "Who are you? "
I asked again, in from under the stillness.
"memory returns in the smallest places, " some
Messenger whispered
In my half-lit dreaming.

With the audacity of budding skill and trust
I touched
Your familiar hand,
Then a ripple seemed to appear.
It upset the night
as I sensed a slender figurine of a dark, tall
And darkly-dressed shadow
In the form of your body with a different face,
raised nearly beside candles that bent with their flame,
taking away the memory of my name
From me,
In a wordless seperation and passing, of all semblance of the
World beyond, in the quiet night of the living.