A re-formatting of an older poem, shared to The Mag.

THE WAY THINGS REALLY ARE

Sit down here, by this closed window
and consider it this way:
that not even dust remains
of how things were
before the sleep of reason;
that not a carbon trace is left                               
of what once might have been.
Relax. Sit back in your chair
and listen to my voice.
                                  
You know the properties
of hope,
of dreams,
of rumours.
You know how rich
the imagined landscape,
and how true that stranger’s voice,
its cadences so clear.
And then a sighting here and there
of those enchanters in their motley,
dancing by firelight and singing
in the old tongue?

Maybe. 
Maybe.

But now consider this:
here, the light that shivers
in my paperweight,
these, the blue fumes
from my cigarette,
they are of the real world.
Watch them with me now,
just the two of us, and know
from these my words and this
the sound of my voice,
the way things really are.