The Man On Chapman Road Poem by Max Burchett

by Max Burchett

As I was driving on the narrow roadway,
Out Chapman Road to start the day,
I saw him standing there.
I stopped and had to stare.

I was shocked to see
The face of someone I had seen,
Never in life, but in a dream.
Of that I am sure, was in a nightmare scene.

Maybe it was my imagination!
I have wondered ever since,
Was he an illusion, or my hallucination?
Such a strange incidence.

Stranger still, the man just looked back at me, face blank,
He said nothing, and I was too shocked
To find words to speak, thoughts to think.
No normal nod or hello was greeted.

His face was expressionless, he just stared.
Alarming part was he seemed to recognize me,
As if I knew him and he knew me,
Continuing the dream where we both had starred.

I had never seen him before
On Chapman Road, but I am sure
He was real, but maybe not.
Just recalling this, I have a chill and scary thought.

I cannot explain or understand, how dreams can possibly manifest
People and things that have never been, but then appear.
Real people I have known, become actors in dreams of the past,
But the encounter with this Chapman man was surreal.

It is hard to explain, to know what it showed.
I am yet to know what it reveals or has shown,
This man standing on Chapman Road.
When I drove away and looked back, he was gone!

In the dream where he appeared,
A nightmare as I said,
He accompanied me through hell and back
And into a cloud as I woke.

I keep trying to recall what he had said, what to me he showed,
What he told me in this dream, something profound.
I should have shouted and asked
When he appeared on Chapman Road.

I am perplexed to know if he was demonic or Divine,
Or something else, though I'm sure the Chapman man was not humankind.
I do not much believe in mystic realms, or prior to this I did not,
But the evidence, this experience, has made me distraught.

I try to clear my mind, to block thoughts out,
But at times I still look about,
Waiting to see the Chapman Road man again.
Whether friend or foe, or a mirage, I must ask him to explain.

Maybe my strange experience was unique, a delusional thought,
But now I suspect it was not.
Think it absurd if you wish, but I know now there exists,
Some other reality, maybe a realm only entered in dreams of anguish.

You best look carefully at faces of strangers who appear lost,
In your waking life, in even mundane, normal mode.
You will in time see the Chapman man from your dreams, a specter, a ghost,
Traveling between worlds; then will appear The Man from Chapman Road.