Unpublished Poetry by William Barber Bancroft - Salty eyes in shriveled sockets

 I awakened this morning in the depths of a dream. The dream was about sharing some of Barber's poetry to the world. I've got limited resources to do that so the thought occurred to me to include some of his poetry in my blog. 

In this blog post I am choosing one poem written by Dr. William Barber Bancroft. Barber obtained his Masters of English from Auburn University and his doctorate in Critical Theory and Modern Literature from the University of California, Irvine. His untimely death in November 2004 left family and friends bereft and the world never received the full measure of his literary gifts.

I first met Barber when we were teenagers. He eagerly shared his poems with many of us during those years and the poem selected here was written before he turned twenty years old.  

Salty eyes in shriveled sockets

I cannot see things I’ve seen before

I perambulate with hands in pockets,

Shuffle silently on the carpeted floor

And I see in Time

My verse and my rhyme

Has served to a benevolent end

And I see Time flee

Like the reflections of me

That stroll across the window pane

Unimpassioned I cannot write of life or of the tomb

Even now like a still birth strife an idea rots within the womb

I listen to the silence and still

We listen to the silence the Still and I

We try to remember things forgot we try and cannot

We look at the children play we listen as they play and sing

We cannot know our minds and still am I still I

We strain for songs forgot try to remember and still cannot

We hum in monotone and wonder if we can still sing

The idea still within the womb slowly begins to rot I try to help

I try to to remember I find that I cannot

In memory only am I alive in memory I sing

But in the present I cannot find my wooden tongue a tongue that cannot sing

And Still

And I

And cannot

And Sing

Still I

Still cannot

Still Sing

I cannot

I Sing

And Still I cannot Sing