The Shock of the New

There is a fundamental disconnect some times, as I walk through familiar places. I see the people, the uniforms; I hear the voices and sense the movements; and yet these are not the same people. It has been disconcerting enough that we dream dreams about the old and the new, merging and submerging, somehow like the voices of mermaids calling.

Things have come to a pretty pass when I find myself waking up and writing bad poetry. Then I sip my coffee and I wonder what on earth I have written at three o'clock in the morning.

They have new names now, are not the heroes that I used to know.
They walk the hills of heaven, they wear the armour and the arms,
But their grace is unfamiliar and the subluminal glow
Shows other seas of faces, and other kinds of charms.

Now the voice inside my head says He is like the Fist of Flame;
And this one you spoke to briefly has the voice of She Who Laughed,
And this other is a double for the Bloke Without A Name;
While his friend reminds you chiefly of the River and the Raft.

But I sit down at the tavern where the yellow meets the red,
And I watch these heroes as they deal with existential dread;
And I know the story changes not though heroes come and go,
For the wyverns of the Gold and Blue still rampage in the flow.

They may hunt in different colours and may serve a different lord,
For the college of the wyverns has known fire and the sword;
But they know the ancient vision, and they hail St David's Day,
And the best is ever yet to be, in every kind of way.