Time Grows Weary Under My Feet. Poem by Scott Forster

Empires fell, London burned in a year of hell
still she never came
In denial, I hope in vain.
My face blackened with soot
Alone with the drunk and destitute
The bombs blew
Sirens sounded
I waited while the years flew.
My heart hardened by the sights I saw
Every oozing sore, every blood feud, every pointless war.
It was enough to make me lose all trust
And wish this whole creation reduced to dust.
They marched in the name of workers with tools
And killed millions with bureaucratic rules.
Where is my honour for suffering these dusty centuries
Where is my release. where is my peace.
The questions plague, dance and play
My mark of Cain, my awful pain.
I ventured I had wished to look upon Thanatos’s stare
For this anguish not a second longer, my soul to bare.
What weight I must carry
Envy almost flows from my throat
Enough for atlas to gloat.
This albatross
This ancient cross - I did not mean to compare….
I did it all myself with arrogance unrepent
My years of wandering, the study of man well spent.
I thought myself a Milton figure
And set my mind on wonders no bigger
Than all but my daily loaf and room
And thus my fate I sealed for blasphemous doom.
My prison without walls,
My travelling alone
This earth my house but not a home.
I vex my thoughts with self pity
When eye for eye, this is my just desert
For what monster could so easily his eyes avert
When that innocent man was whipped and hurt.
A monster is all that I am. If man only knew.
There pound of flesh due with hate anew.
Long and lonely I have travelled this world of blue.
And still I have not in my heart to give in to you.