The old fool - a poem by Chris Zachariou

The London Yellow Circle Line 

I'm shackled on the Circle Line
rereading the same adverts all the time.
There are all kinds of people on the train.
Many sleep, some stare into space
and many more grin like startled fools.

There is no hope left for me anymore.
I drift along without designs, searching
   in vain for beauty.
I have no plans, compasses, or charts

and wisdom came to me too late—
some even may say it never did at all.

All I ever wanted was to read books
by D H Lawrence and poems by Lorca.
People say this is odd and call me
a fool to my face.

Am I a ghost perhaps? I’m not sure
anymore. I seem to live in two worlds
and maybe I'm a tourist in both.
People write ‘dreamed’ instead of ‘dreamt’;
they say it is the same but I know it's not.

I want to go back to the clubs
in Soho and Leicester Square
where all the girls are young and pretty.
They always are so kind and sweet to me
and tell me age is just a number.

Please someone stop the train.
Rewind the clock, I need to go back
I have no other place left to go.

‘You can't,’ I hear the timekeeper shriek,
‘All the doors are shut to old fools like you.’