You ran away from the frenzy of your fame.
They could never keep up, as each mile added
To the new life you imagined
And the legend you made was a ghost in your mind.
Who would know you in a backstreet café,
Or as a loner with a frown on a rhythmic train?
You followed no map, only your heart
And the freedom you sought like some kind of dream.
Would they find you in a bar or by a river at night?
Your words left no trail, though they blazed in the salons.
The clothes of their worship you’d already outgrown:
The precocious schoolboy was now a young man.
You moved like a shadow among the crowds,
Emptying your thoughts of a runaway past.
You who had sought those new heavens and hells
Found yourself in the strangest of lands,
On a continent where you were unknown,
Where you could explore the poetry of life.
Note: “Je est un autre” :“I is someone else” – Arthur Rimbaud
Peter Thabit Jones © 2022
Published in GARDEN OF CLOUDS/NEW AND SELECTED POEMS by Peter Thabit Jones, 2020