On the leading edge of life <br />Where the world no longer turns <br />And the Sun neither rises nor sets, <br />Where even Time is held 'on-hold', <br />His hourglass grains frozen in freefall <br />Upon the bitter cusp of Forever; <br />There slumber the grey, unwaking shades <br />Of that other world <br />That lies within, yet without, the Land of the Living: <br />Those silent citizens of sad O-le-Coma City; <br />Immobile flesh and blood, <br />Unwilling or incapable of movement: <br />Some from shock; <br />Others from falling into an auto-hypnotic sleep <br />Where the magician-self has 'gone under' too – <br />Both now lost in depths far beyond the reach <br />Of the emergency services of consciousness; <br />Souls incarcerated in personal prisons of perfect inertia, <br />Dreaming unknowing, <br />Or silently screaming <br />To be let back into their own life <br />Before it passes them by. <br /> <br />Miracles sometimes happen in O-le-Coma City: <br />Some find their way back. <br /> <br />No one knows why.<br /><br />Tony Jolley<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/o-le-coma-city/
