At five blackbird
At six the sun
Never inspiration
Seldom the joy
Occasionally an interstitial twinge
Sometimes a cat’s twitch
And always the hooded faceless
at two
at three
at four.
Image from http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~nicholson/alice.html
What does it matter where my body happens to be? My mind goes on working all the same.
I’ve done it again. Unwitting, unwelcome,
I’ve woken up Knight Anxious,
all creeping worries and lingering thoughts,
all lists and fears, tapeworms,
my warts magnified fivefold by the conjured dangers of the night.
He heralds tumbling tonefalls, a rain-soaked day ahead.
Regardless of the weather, he never cooks the pudding,
yet proud of his invention, he harrumphs on horses high,
failure denigrated, unhinged from little pleasures,
unwashed with median joys.
He watches, waits, then pounces, always the live menace,
but always unexpected.
After all this time
I still can’t find the trigger
nor welcome him sagely
nor sluice him off like wet reproaches.
I hesitate just one second:
each time the haircracks multiply,
he seeps through, sucking
all air from the cave of my lungs:
infallible gravity.
We soldier on, we soldier on, mounted or on foot,
no end in sight, no redeeming dawn,
we balance, we teeter… and some of us fall.
Every night at four
I startle awake,
like a doe sensing danger in the forest of my dreams.
Trees come up to charge me,
transform before my eyes
to endless reams of paper
unleashing lists in the dark:
invoices, accounting, due dates.
All their screeching pleas
reproachful looks
mouths gaping with urgency
like babes unfed.
How can I divide myself in enough parts to please them all?
I’ve read all the books
on expanding my brain and ensuring eternal happiness.
I breathe deeply and visualise,
think of colours, tastes and smells,
let my limbs grow lank and sleepy,
start leaving tasks in each room of my memory mansion
but never get beyond the ground floor.
Then I panic
breathing shallow
heart flutters that extra wriggle
which tightens my abdomen.
I rush again and again through identical rooms
circling like an inept crow.
Too much to know
take in, remember,
too much to search, gather, understand.
Too much choice
yet nothing is new under the sun.
Nothing captures me, nothing remains.
Tomorrow the novelty will be submerged in fresh newness.
My voice surely too will drown in all that noise.
The fractal geometry of our lives
the ruthlessness of passing,
I feel maimed
dislocated from images and sounds.
Fragility poises for bare second on my finger
Then butterflies off
To a world of vulnerable memories.
My pain is not depth but the shallowness and width.
