Wheezing like a tired, old dog
spreadeagled on a threadbare, faded rug
in an empty room on the ground floor
of a shack, two-miles out of town
on a long-forgotten, seldom travelled track
a man, no longer sure of why
or even when he came to sit and stare,
turns his slightly heavy head a fraction,
maybe less than that - to listen -
to try to hear once more that sound
he thought he might have heard before;
not an echo, not a whisper,
not the distant drum of some lost drummer
marching down the road to might have been
but still, he thought, the sound of something.
