Vaudevue

Poem inspired by Stevie Smith's poem Come On, Come Back, in which the protagonist is a character called Vaudevue

So this is it.

Here is where it ends

The battle’s tide has swept me here

Nothing left over here, no, but fear

And deadly silence consuming my mind

The field of battle

Away I must get away

Ah me why am I here

Sitting alone on this round flat stone

Where deafening silence plagues the mind

The lake it

Pulls me forward, draws

My numb legs nearer, sagging, sailing to

The tide – the only thing that will ever hide

The spiralling, falling, white-noise mind

It takes me in, consumes me I fall

Into its arms, it hugs me in its arms no

Cold can rouse me now

My mind is too far

The theme still plays

The white-noise plague won’t go away

‘Come On, Come Back’

Vaudevue

In the swift and subtle current’s close embrace

Is just a name that’s served my place

A word it will remain, for here I am a-strain

Released now from my pain

‘Come On, Come Back’