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Portrait of an ageing man

He's frail, wasted,
searching a void for sense of self unaware his mind is smouldering to ash.
He's hostile,
tired of platitudes,
patronising smiles,
and the long hard pull.
Things once important
no longer hold sway. He disregards
and loses most knowledge with his continence, somewhere ...
He's a will-o-wisp,
angry, afraid,
groping his way round a twilight maze.
It's not possible to relax.

Home nestles in his mind
protected,
cosseted.
Flimsy memories are beacons
beckoning him to the hearth,
and his sweetheart.
But cognitive pathways are tangled,
overgrown.
His reality is 'Once upon a time ...'
Still, nostalgia lures him
her perfume, Sunday roasts and
the dog,long gone.
He fights,and will resist to
the end, because all he wants
is to go home.