2022.16 Revenge

Content warning: circular thoughts, sleep deprivation, implied despair and self-neglect.

Does it ever stop? Is stopping an option?
I am propped up on cough drops and not enough sleep,
deep in the shifting miasmas of clinging nightmares,
bearing up because I keep being told I’m strong.
But this is a sickness nothing can lance;
chance would be a fine thing.

I’m tired, that’s the thing.
Just tired, and resisting the obvious option,
because anyone close enough would see at a glance
that this creature needs more sleep,
wreathed in the creeping realisation that strong
isn’t enough to stop the nightmares

Because they’re mighty, these nightmares,
and I’m tired, that’s the thing,
of living up to the myth of strong,
wrong-footing myself until the only option
is push until I’m dropping, beyond the need to sleep.
Any more of this, and I’ll need an ambulance.

But there’s something like a dirty little jubilance
as I slalom the persistent nightmares
by the simple expedient of dodging sleep,
deep in denial until I’m too tired – that’s the thing,
mocking any sensible option
after all: I need to prove myself strong

Rapidly repeat a word until it loses meaning: strong strong strong strong strong,
upright, mighty, solid, persistent, grim, ringed with vigilance;
hero or villain - those are the options,
because not enough sleep means the daytime bleeds nightmares
which I’m too tired to not flinch from, that’s the thing,
and still I stop here, not sleeping.

Repeatedly censor a concept until it loses meaning: sleep sleep sleep sleep sleep...
But the gravity well of softness is strong,
and I’m tired, that’s the thing;
twitching from the rigours of hypervigilance,
becoming one with the nightmares
harrowing down my option

And the thing is – I’d probably think clearer with more sleep,
give myself better options instead of mocking the concept of strong,
striking a balance between me and the nightmares; it may be too late.

This one’s taken a couple of days to write, and I’ve enjoyed adding more repetition than usual to an already repetitive form (sestina, as taught to us by our dear, departed friend, Caron Freeborn, available, like its kin, in the Concrete and Repeating Forms spreadsheet). I wouldn’t say it’s factual (for one thing, the cough drops line was purely for the sake of internal assonance), but it’s true enough.

2015.5 Dawn

This is not my first all-nighter, 
and it won’t be my last by 
any stretch of the imagination, 
consciousness grating on 
flayed nerves, 
bursts of radio static 
in unconsidered colours, 
twenty-seven and already 
deeply familiar with severed realities.

It is, however, my first
by National Express
(though not my last)
as I’m passed from pillar to post,
mostly through the ghost towns
of the ancient coach stops
dotted across the bleary landscape
I am starting to call… not home,
not yet, but a beacon to
my bruised heart,
choosing this quest to sain me.
Sain Us.

I am trying to stay awake in
the grey, migraine strip-lit
flicker that is Luton airport,
20… 20… 2002? 2003?
resting, restless, on slippery surfaces
designed for anything but
relaxation, consuming sugar
against the drooping eyelids
that might see me miss
my destination.

I am reading a book, slim-yet-dense,
never guessing its part in
consuming obsession ahead of me,
and yet the Now-Me can’t remember
if it was Volume I or II.
I’m convinced it was I, yet the
crackling synapses of that dreamtime
bridge the distance, flip the pages of
the man solo save for a stray boy
straight into the beached doorways
drifting between times
five years later.

And, let’s face it, I made that
cash-saving escapade more times
since than I can easily reckon,
the beckoning of Milton Keynes
summoning me from the safety
of Wales, a controlled skid into
a different way of existing,
resisting silent pleas for
the belief that I could be more,
twice four-score miles
from childhood seasons,
bilingualism, hills, and sea.

We’ll never know –
I walked through the door willingly,
fleeing pain and… me,
and found a different verse,
some words worse, but others new,
knew myself for poet,
preacher, teacher, larger, kinder,
reaching different peaks,
but losing song, and, dragons fading,
I strode on, alone, into the Wastelands.

So, this comes from the Day 5 prompt and, as some folk have also reported, I never followed through on the actual prompt, but got sucked into the image that accompanied it, which reminded me of a book some of you might have recognised from the fleeting description – The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King. Except that the memory it summoned up in me was of a crazed all-nighter when I was reading the altogether different first book, The Gunslinger, so you get to experience a shred of my mildly synaesthetic, sleep deprived confusion.

I mean, to be fair, I did find this image on the Google Image search originally!

2018.4 Druth

When I left, they let me.
No-one followed, And I
staff in hand made my own path
Sky-clean and stream-wandering.

I bordered on nothing, nodding
its feather-brush, touching and untouching.
I dark, it follow, wending and
unending. We peer freely, touch
with reverence, the grey is

And I

Forest is sky - the touch untouch
fronds against light and dark speaks.
It is more than maybe but
Not too soon.

If I, feathercloak fly it will be
Taken of taking, touch of untouching.
I gather. Cleave close to edges
Edges speak where the centre stays silent.
S   I   L   E   N   T   C   E      S   I   N   G

I prefer here that is not-there
Ivy shoulders; smoke skin,
Gather the edge dark in my hands
Wait patience as song for them to stop
feathering, gather my arms from mist
so I can eat.

I still eat, though its weight can be
bruising and nor of. Some of the
It’s very light, but quiet is dark so
edges of song drift feather bright

We were leaves once.

And we. We are featherdark light
And I am forgetting where my
old name talked.
It talked and talked, lode and loaded
the words hot and

Yet

Song.

Silencesong is feather soft, leaf edge
against me and we walk,
Darkness and I cry sometimes
Laugh sometimes, edge drift like
the smoke I remember
And quiet is still and I can hear
on the edge of breath

My other heart. A new hearth
For the silent song.

Bound no more. I am.

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.

2017.12 - Neon

In the dark, the cut ones
Dance with black light,
Caressing galaxies.

They summon the
Impossible creatures,
Singing themselves to flight.

And stars bear witness,
Grit-cling to the singers
Bring new life, heavy and wise.

And I scribble enigmas,
Sleep-starved, sitting
Propped against nature,
Breaking it thread by thread

Watching the flowers die.

A friend posted this link recently, and it was clearly percolating away in my mind. I rejected all prompts, much to my body’s annoyance, until I remembered this one. Did I mention that I’m quite tired at the moment?