The old rustic fence, listing at the end of the garden
Looking forbidding, yet tantalising.
When I was very young the fence was too high
Maybe not so brilliantly painted
Now naturally, against the sky, tainted.

Tufts of rough grass, enticing a tumbling foot
Looking innocent, from a distance
Like the wall the other side of the fence
I thought one day I shall look over
To find out what was on the other side

Many times I visited the end of the garden
Hardly noticing what lies there, at the end
Many times the feeling of foreboding
But never enough motive to investigate
My thoughts ran further that mere gates
My dreams of the beyond were with me
Day and night.

My wandering mind could try to leap the fence
But always it was higher than it might
Seem from a great distance
I summoned an extra helping of steeled nerves
On more than one occasion
Only to find myself in an invisible cage upon
Which set a force that would repel my efforts.

The rains washed the colour to dismal grey
The wood was tattered, felt like clay
Splinters finally invaded my hands
As I tried my luck at survey
But the years hadn’t destroyed the forbidden
Secret that must surely have lain
The very other side of the shaky fences.

Thoughts lanced the languid days of summer
With spectres and monsters
For the imagination is never satisfied
Without a sighting of what lies beyond
The near obsession would wreak dismay
For a conjured fantasy would only delay
What really had to be done.



Part II

For over twenty five years the mystery was shelved
The fence had all but dissolved
Into micro chasms in my head
The leaden expectation invaded my dreams in bed.
Those many years later at the funeral of a thought
I clasped an empty embrace
Let forth condolences, a trace
Of sympathy to help wipe away the dark tears
The drying attracted my eyes to the street tiles
My eyes sped along geometric lines
I couldn’t hold my breath
A fire was started behind my eyes
But darkness reappeared.

In the following minutes as the sun raged in
I was kneeling
Cleaning a large stain from the tiles
The sun hindered
The heat hinted
The sky was red tinted.
The stain was the colour of creosote.

My knees chafed merrily as mourners knelt in unison
The scrubbing of stains seeming not unusual
The cleaning was a sensible way to mourn
Everyone who could see the fence
As the priest sighed prayed,
Commenced the cleaning.

During the half hour it took over fifty people to clean
Passers-by smiled, they offered advice
Their teeth lied we winced our apologies,
How do you explain fifty people scrubbing the pavement
Outside a church
When the sky was tinted red?

I paid particular attention to the detail
of the carved patterns
That lay within every forty tiles
My eyes were magnetised
As I scraped an unwary elbow against someone’s fence
The cut was shallow the blood warm, the fence old,
In licking the wound the dream was played again.

Like the re-releasing of Gone With The Wind
The fence was now showing on the main screen
Energy spouted into every crevice of memory
The dream
The Fence
The Foreboding – 
	They had all revisted
The creosote catalyst had reacted 
I’m in mourning
Incredulous
In the forbidden place.

The fence was warm in the dying sun
My fingers throbbed 
The work having been done
My eyes were strobed
I struggled a sigh as realisation stepped in
I staggered as a new image awakened.

I’m on the other side of the fence...
In over thirty years of travel and dreams
The fence loomed large it seems
But now the cleaning is complete
The fence was fading in the heat
The sense of the forbidden view
Had collected a history of blue
The fence had nails
That rust in the sea air
The shiny stainless steel
Hadn’t a care 
It now had to bear
The consequence
Of dull ignorance.

Am I standing in my dream
Or is the dream standing in me.

The fence won’t go away
But I’m so much bigger
Than the uttered word
That I feel ridiculous,
However could anyone be afraid
To look over the shaky fence.