David Rowbotham (1924 - 2010) was an Australian journalist and poet of national repute. His poetry took off much later in his life and his published works were formally recognised when he won the Patrick White Award in 2007. He passed away three years later at the age of 86.
Just months before his passing, he had a poem published entitled Phantoms. Here is an excerpt from that poem:
I see phantoms
They are new towns in a long tomb
They crowd the room
Whether I dream or wake.
Their world is infinite,
They multiply,
Only the dead are sinister:
I see only because of them.
They are my blinding eyes:
Eyeless phantoms, sly moving shrouds,
Perpetual eyeless speechless things
And enemy slings I'm living through.
What strikes one is how these lines - as well as the title - hint that David may well have been describing his personal experience of Charles Bonnet syndrome.
His daughter, Jill Rowbotham, confirmed to the Foundation that her father lived with macular degeneration and glaucoma and was 'almost blind towards the end of his life'. However, there was no diagnosis of CBS given at the time nor did she (or her sister) note any comments from her father that may have indicated he lived with the syndrome.
Even so, the vividness of his descriptions in this poem seems to point to experiences that many in the CBS community could relate to. This excerpt is shared with the generous permission of his daughters.
