One Hundred Days In Plague Town

 

I met a man in Plague Town

With bird’s beak and a long black coat

He carried a cane in his left hand

He spoke to me and I quote:
‘Don’t travel far from your fire son

Go runaway and hide

For Fear stalks the streets of Plague Town

Some are ill and others have died’

 

So I went back home as he told me

And I sat and counted the days

A man may find comfort with family

And another find hope when he prays

But I seek the sanctity of books

So I started writing down words

Between the silence prevalent in Plague Town

Just my pen and the songs of the birds

 

Though I did what ol’ beaky told me

And I followed the words that he said

I knew I could go anywhere that I liked

In the playgrounds inside my head

So I went to the past and the future

And spent time with strangers and friends

And I wrote it all down in a big black book

And only I will know the day that it ends

 

There’s sadness walking in Plague Town

It is everywhere I can see

But I hold off that sadness with creation

And all manner of word poetry

A hundred days I have sat here

And a hundred poems I’ve written

Though the wolf’s been howling and pawing my door

I am still unrepentant, unbitten

 

Today I walked out into Plague Town

That old bastard with beak he had hidden

But I knew he was just in the shadows

And would come out again if he was bidden

So tomorrow I will turn a new page

Like the last hundred days I have done

I will take up my pen and go wandering

In search of poem one hundred and one