2017.17 - Elements of Sleep

Easy, like sheep
Layers of family,
And colours keeping
Things neat, and memorable
The castle, towers rising

Start small. H.

Hydrogen, Helium, Argon
Boats strain with the
current-fighting surge of
shoulders carrying obsession
like a curse

Potassium, Magnesium
A flash of light older
than living memory
they're all done, a
full-stop of generations

Carbon, Silicon, Oxygen
Clasping hands in waltzing pairs
but only one hand each
maybe a gavotte
or pavanne, fixed smiles

Boron, Neon, Xenon
Strange, so strange,
bright and inert
taking up space
and saying nothing

Nitrogen, Iron
The core of it all
beginning and end
cleaving and failing
and falling, molten again

Gallium, Plutonium
Waiting, tall and dark-voiced,
his half-lit wife
looking away,
straining to the birdsong

Everything else is fading
Or a clasp of complicity,
compounding interest
and splintering,
and Lithium

Sodium, Selenium
Star-metal
the Thunderer's plunder
understand the tears
splashing on a dry chest

Alumnium, Tin, Zinc
Ageing windows
opening into
oxidation blossoms
garrotting, gavotting
What?

Mercury, Gold, Copper
Hope for the future
is a liquid ring
on an empty finger
lingering

Rise.
Google is cheating
Rise
Warm milk
A new beginning
Rise
Read yourself a story
Cassette clatter
sing yourself to sleep
Rise.
And fall.
And fall.

Merino, Suffolk, Cheviot, Southdown, Romney, Shropshire, Polypay…

Marion Leeper, current Bard of Cambridge, suggested (among other things) listing elements of the Periodic Table - you never know, she said, something might come up. Behold, a gift of insomnia.