Death of a dream - a poem by Chris Zachariou

lilies

You feed me slices of Madeira cake,
I roll two cigarettes and pour us mulled wine.

When the wine and the cigarettes
are done, we go down to the rocks
and dance to shy cicada love songs.

Whirling naked round and round
we cast our inhibitions to the wind, until
spent and sated we lie in a musty cave
mourning our crushed dreams of ’67.
Eagles swoop down from the mountain.
They devour the brown cicadas chanting
a dirge of death.

Later, we crawl back into the safety of the cave
and watch the shadows dancing on the walls
until the gates open to a vision of our future lives—
shivering and looking for a shelter.

We kiss one last time, then leaping into the
dark abyss, we roar 'an eagle for a moment'.