Treacle – John De Gruyther

Beginning to peel away the layers of his sanity

Was he only whole when she was there?

All his hopes, desires to do something

Contingent on another, a lover

Better to have loved for one minute than to have never loved at all, or something like that, a mis-remembered quote 

She was a part of him, an extension of his consciousness

This suffering artist lark ain’t no walk in the park, it is

pain

He’d rather be contented in the rat race attentive

agonise over words frustrated, aspirations serrated, hopes berated, a soul deflated

A beacon is shining the way to redemption, a way of contemplation, a simple evocation 

Even words, his closest ally, war against him, every one an unexploded bomb

As he sprints through ‘treacle January’

Like Atlas he holds the grey clouds upon his back, lest they overwhelm him

Yet the season is beginning to change, the…