Infuriating verse

Skype’s dying fall

Hail distant friends! Ta-ra di-bum; I hope
These words ring out a Hallmark note for you,
Not too egregious, that five-dollar term;
Not claiming amity which wasn’t there;
But if I fail then pardon me toute suite
 
Why distant? Simply because your bookshelves,
Cars, faces, house facades, offspring, pet dogs,
And how you manicure your nails, must be
Forever blurred to me. Distorted
As they are through long electric links
 
But let’s disdain the intervening miles
And mobilise the power of thought. Let’s say
We’ve met on Chichester, that urban route
I walk each day to buy the fruity stuff
That spills its juice and keeps my love alive
 
We stand. We talk. Oh, how we did. Discussed
The horrors of the presidential cloud.
Our wit. The whys and wherefores of bad health,
The songs we sung so plangently. And how
Our histories do inform on us. (Good quote)
 
Yet, as I watched, you weren’t quite there. Instead
Seemed haunted by a vague-ish entity
Coming and going, only partly seen.
Raising questions you did not dare to put.
A matter of suburban delicacy.
 
But asked yourself: who’s that vestigial wraith,
Ten feet behind him and his shopping bag?
Comprising mist yet reeking with overt.
Significance. A threat? A prophet with
A view of what the future might portend?
 
Talk ended blankly thus you turned to leave.
I bid goodbye, devoid of friendliness.
I’d recognised your faint distress, but felt
It better that your doubts should rest
As now, in unresolv-ed ignorance.
 
The wraith went too but – sure as eggs
Are eggs – he will return. He must return.
 
He is my lately born and helpful twin.
 
He did not share my birth but has a past,
Once was a babe, arms waved in protest
In his pram. Went soccer-mad in youth,
Then Grand Theft Auto brought insanity.
Shrugged off with an improving adult tome
 
Did well in uni with the harder stuff, then
Took a job because it promised empathy.
Sought those in need in other quadrispheres.
Succeeded, after which he travelled west
To take up station at my ageing side.
 
I say “my twin” but that was then - the day
We met; since then, in time, he’s passed me by
But I’m OK with that, it is his job
To surf the future’s waves on my behalf
And stay erect where I’d be lost in foam
 
That’s why the wraith you saw on Chichester
Was/is a fraction older than I am;
The same but saner, more experience.
Less angered by surrounding politics,
More able to engage with life to come
 
Older, faster, yet on my trajec’try.
If asked, he could convey new news to me.
When will it rain? The hell with that. Horse wins,
Who cares? Yet there’s a knot’s to be untied.
The biggest question anyone may ask.
 
He’ll get there first; and see with clarity
My ailments coalesce within my frame;
See cleverness dissolve, arch words turn dust,
The urge to write be deadened by the dark;
Wisdom – if it exists - be foul and crass.
 
And music, ah, the cruellest change of all,
Losing its song and beat, becomes mere noise,
I’ll be alone, mute, deaf and unsustained,
I’ll sense the nothingness as tangible,
Departure finalised with no return.
 
An awful preview which – ironically -
Will shine light on my former, wordy trade.
A scoop of answers gifted by my twin,
Brings understanding at the price of pain.
It’s why I named him: Curiosity