Lingering Torment Poem by ivor or ivor.e hogg

She is bewildered and afraid
no longer sure of anything
Remembering mistakes she’s made.
She finds that she is confusing
the present with the distant past.
Two different realities
but neither of them seems to last
life is full of mysteries.

There is a man who comes to call.
He seems to know her very well.
She can’t remember him at all
Although his features ring a bell
She sometimes wonders where she is
but loses soon her train of thought.
How sad to see it come to this.
She can’t survive without support

She does not know, she does not care.
She is perpetually bemused,
her mind is now beyond repair
She is contentedly confused.
Though we who love her suffer more
to see her reduced to this state
Not Compos Mentis anymore.
With saddened hearts we can but wait.

For death the final arbiter
to pardon her and set her free
I am quite sure she would prefer,
if she could say competently
Not to be here but be elsewhere,
a better place where she could be
with those who have preceded her
Once more a soul at liberty.