Lately I’ve had trouble sleeping. This poem is the result.
The quiet hours
Awake, too early, again at 4.
Crawling from the wreckage of
the startled bed,
I part the nets and peer outside.
Vague voices echo in the streets around the house
Before chasing each other up and down,
with blades.
The bedroom lacks the secret architecture of sleep;
Wakefulness rattles its walls.
At this hour, a lone blackbird owns the roof,
time-signalling technology the room.
Late winter, the sky indefatigably dark,
Just a half moon to see, and the
premature chimes of the church clock to hear.
The moonlight burns my face;
Night fits round me like a loosely-knitted cardigan.
The lights still dimmed
My mirrored shadows stalk the rooms.
The dark listens, it doesn’t participate.
In the low lamplight,
The shadows spilled between the bookshelves
Soak like blood into the carpet.
Forgetting how to sleep, only hearing
The house’s shallow breathing,
Gingerly exercising its joints.
By daybreak, the rooks have arrived,
Ink-spattering the sky in raucous composition.
The breakfast table is predictably ready
for toast, and marmalade, and porridge.
It holds the threat, and the promise,
of the imminent day.
This day, as all days, is a child’s cardboard theatre.
People slide in and out;
Scenery comes up and down;
Anything can happen.