Friends Are Strangers Now. Poem by Denis Barter

Would that a brief glance, allow them to renew
their world! How one wishes it could be!
To see with the eyes of an innocent child,
and revive those fast withering memories

ere they pass into obscurity and disappears
into a private Hell! There, with no more
recall of times, once held near and dear
they remain hidden behind an unmarked door!

To lose the delights of memories once enjoyed,
whilst now unknown, are dear friends and family.
With every pleasure known, lost or destroyed,
they become as flotsam. Drifting through life aimlessly.

Devoid of fervour - possessed of none to share,
every day drags by - they've no need for haste!
Greeting old friends, with a blank, vacant stare,
their once fertile minds, are as the barren waste!

Without the excitement a full life bestows,
each day is a charade, that adds to the curse
of dementia. As frustration steadily grows,
devoid of all purpose, so angst grows worse.

Call it Alzheimer's no matter its name,
it's a cursed disease, that desecrates the brain!
Notwithstanding their station, no call for blame,
their nearest and dearest suffer a cruel strain.

On meeting one thus affected, do we, not knowing,
wonder what to say, or do we pass by, and ignore
an old acquaintance who, their confusion showing,
reacts bewildered to one familiar, known no more!

With few warning signs seen, dementia usurps life,
until forgotten is every person they had ever known.
Every one loved, be they friend, husband or wife,
is lost in the dark void of a life, no longer their own.

When despair rules their day, each hour meaningless,
life's spark slowly fades. And with their future denied,
we can but watch, in angry frustrated helplessness,
as they fall ever faster, down their hell bent slide!


Later, we'll ask of ourselves, what more
could we or should we have done to allay
their desperate plight? Though we deplore
our ineptitude, no answer is found today

to ease our aching heart. The futile frustration
of our vain attempts to enter their private domain,
leaves us distraught, for the continued aggravation
exacts a toll, few of us can understand or explain.

We pray with a passion to be spared this cursed disease,
hoping to enjoy memories of earlier days, as we age
joys remembered of yesterday will undoubtedly please
us, until worn, weary and tired, we turn life's last page!

Rhymer. November 27th,2016.