Poem - Looking for Eden

[kokopelle]

Internet radio presented the song “Looking for Eden” by Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull). I thought the idea was fascinating, so I wrote a poem based on those three words. It started out with the thought of finding a place to rest, and then got much darker.

Looking for Eden
Poem for Day 298 – 20151026

I'm looking for Eden to rest my tired head.
a garden of paradise away from the pain,
peaceful existence that's faded away.
Was it really that way in past memory?
The years pass and I'm still standing here,
the lone man remembering what could have been.

Days of wine and roses are no more,
replaced by the bitter dregs of thorns
on the transoms of life's flogging rack.
Follow the landmarks of a life wasted,
beware the landmines of lives abused,
and you'll find the exit from Eden.

The gates require no flame armed guardian,
they are bound shut by my own consequence
of acts carried out in foreign lands.
They will be no answer if dare knock,
innocence was the attendant in the past,
he is long gone, victim of long years.

I wonder if Eden is just a memory,
illusion of the wiles of retrospection,
whispering that life had a better time.
It matters little to this tired old man,
seeking the far land of milk and honey
distracts me from the living I have now.

© 2015, Sean Green. All Rights Reserved.