Dead Dreams

There once was a boy called Tom Who knew not where he was from, So he went to a land far away And lived a life, o, so fine, so gay. He lived under a silvery shining summer moon, Cirri skies of pastel aloft made him fully-bloom. Lavender light and smell and song suffused his memory, But, alas, such sweets evoked not what was but what could be. For as time slowly went by, He felt his life go awry, And deep shadows walked over his being, The leaks in his soul unheard, unseen. For in each enchanted moment that came, The problem was invariably the same; Not what and who were there, but who and what were not, Slowly made his visions and dreams decay and rot. He was, alas, a victim of time, His days bereft of rhythm, of rhyme. And so his gasping heart felt not full, Skies drained of hue; chords of doom rang dull. Thus one day he mounted a cliff-edge, And, with a full gasp, leapt off the ledge, And dived and tumbled and fell hard down to the sea, That poor boy, Tom, from his phantoms, never free.