To Clarify

Though curtains drawn and lighting low,

it’s obvious to those around -

whose faces, names I do not know,

unrecognised as my new norm.

That fog descends, in daily fug,

depression, Lewy, drugs, combined

with podcast news, dementia bug

rates so much higher with disease.

The irony, to clarify

(like butter drizzled, curry ghee),

there is no way to quantify

effects, such mist, on poetry.

Sum, say it may be fewer words,

a haiku counting syllables,

or knot tied up as if absurd,

the logic licenced in the verse.

Transparent, many, who bear care,

it’s plain that lucid in retreat,

as manifest to those who share,

self-unaware, that synapse clogged.

They say it’s better, not to know,

that unimpeded, way ahead -

save for brief moments when on show -

no obstacles to downward trip.