The Empty Chair


Dust gathers in unexpected spaces,
in the groove left by the impatient
drumming of your fingers,
waiting for nothing to happen, again.

Dust gathers in the silence of the open door,
never to be filled by your presence,
the library that stored your experience,
and your learning is shut, the key has been thrown away.

Shadows threaten the reverie,
they highlight the difference between now,
and that which will never be,
between fiction and fact,
and the stages of life,
in which you will always be present,
but only in bittersweet memories.

Your absence,
is never more present,
than in your empty chair.


* Ben Macnair
was born in 1976 in Nottingham, and now resides in Staffordshire. He
has been writing creatively on and off for the last four or five years.
His poetry has appeared in Purple Patch, Raw Edge and various other print publications and websites.