Loneliness Or Solitude? Poem by John Knight

This poem is dedicated to ALL THE LONELY PEOPLE. It is also dedicated to those who are not lonely but crave THE SOUND OF SILENCE in a World where CHURCH BELLS have been replaced by DECIBELS!

I am never really alone in the 21st Century
Consequently I am a stranger to solitude.
When I think back - over 75 years
I don't remember being alone in the 20th Century either.
I read - in the Colchester Gazette
That 'A lady had lain dead in her flat
In Colchester - for five months! '
Does such isolation really exist today?

Some of my second level acquaintances
Say they are very lonely.
Nobody calls - nobody cares
If they live or even if they die.
They break thier unwelcome solitude
By going out - but they don't fit in!
They choose to sit alone - as if
Solitude was their raison d'etre.
They leave early and scurry back
To feed the CAT!
If you have a CAT or (God forbid) a DOG
Do you still qualify for the lonliness allowance?

Are 'All these Lonely People' miserable?
I dont know it's difficult to say
Because often they won't converse
And if they do they don't communicate!
They live in a synthetic World of TV
Trips to the Supamarket
And the odd (often very odd!) excursion.
'Only the Lonely' know how it really feels!

I visit people in 'Senior Citizens Resthomes'
Places full of good will - but empty of good cheer.
I enter the room and play my banjo.
Some of them sing - some (very occasionally) dance,
But the majority are already dead behind their eyes.
Lovely but lonely - leisurely but lonely.
At the end of their lives - that in reality ended
Years and years and years ago!
I pack my banjo - back in its coffin like case
And breath a short prayer - 'Thank God for Families! '
I'm an orphan but I've got my own family and thirty cousins
And one brother who chooses to live in the middle of Mexico!

Memories cure the ache - but memories shared,
Cure the cause as well
I have a wife, whom I have known for sixty years
So in essence I have never been alone since 1950!
I have three children - somewhere
And eight grandchildren - somewhere else!
Some things can assuage (good word) lonliness:
The care of a neighbour - the love of a freind,
The heartfelt concern of extended families,
A letter - a phone call - even a text or an e-mail!
It's oh so simple to be the means
Of making the lonely a little less lonely.

It's good to know we can be an important link
In the chain of communication to a lonely person.
I crave solitude - but I never want to be really lonely.
I dont want to lie - DEAD - in my flat for five months,
With no one to notice - to call - to care - to communicate.
But it did happen yesterday and it could happen again,
Tomorrow - to me - to you - to anybody.
I would love a megasize Funeral - a real Scouse send-off
With everybody dressed in the ubiquitous RED & BLUE
Six black stallions and a New Orleans Jazz Band playing
'You'll never walk Alone' and 'Just a Closer Walk with Thee'.
Solitude and Lonliness are diametrically opposed.