Sleepless

You wake to the ache beneath your eyelids
you open your eyes, only to close them again—sleepless
though you slept.

You dreamt a dream long and terrified
inconsolable, it rocks
to and fro in its corner
its cries, deafening
your useless comforts,
your useless help.

You live the life of the day unrealized
burdened with the bags beneath your eyes
Sisyphus’ world on your shoulders
backwards and forwards
backwards and forwards
the nodding heads on your commute.

And after, you pace the coming night out of habit
and the sinking want of just something more
you close your eyes, only to open them again—restless
as always.
At last, you drift
to the sound of static:
panic and uncertainty.

This world

This world, of which I still consist
Is battered, beat, and does persist.
Come times that strike pressures undue,
And cracks that heal, and form anew—
Lives yet my soul, once radiant;
My molten core, tossed, turbulent
That has failed me those times before
Fail me not now, just this once more.

You could be mad and unknown

You could be mad and unknown
Unhinged, and yet unheard, unseen
Genius undiscovered, mystery so wild
An insanity, child-like, that escapes unnoticed.

You could be grace in despair
Hopeless in simplicity; you know
All eloquence in words is survived
By the sadness kept in your eyes.

You could be happiness on crack
With a smile to allure and distract
No distress to deter, just joyfully demur
And a laugh both charming and shrill.

If you’re old enough to dream
You’re old enough for regret
That self-same conception
The self-made lie:
“All I could have been,”
“Oh, all I could have been.”

“Nature, red in tooth and claw”

It’s cold and empty in my skull
A vast and primordial sea
Crossed, unformed
Alone and infantile

Most Sundays have eyes like mine
Tinged red with worry and regret
As the seventh restless day
Creates the seventh sleepless night

Red, red as the bloody birthing sky
Giving rise to the sun
Red as the dim-witted rose
That forgot to grow thorns

Red as the guilt and the doubt
In the love you lived without

Red as the smell of blood
Between the teeth
Behind the lips that meet
to say:

This.

This and this and this.

This is what you can form, this is what you can become, this is what you can choose to be, to be!

And this is what you cannot.

Tied

The tongues we speak are tied:
Nothing translates
But the time we spend alone.

How long?

How long?

No, your comforts are obliged
Just pity…
I speak for I alone.

Derivative

Your dreams dream dreams of mine
like the glow in the aftermath of a crime
in the retina of a movie-gazer—
Mirrored mirrors can tell you
that fairest of them all
is still a shadow of a shadow
against the cavern wall.

Fetal Position

Empty, empty but the sound of your head beneath your shoulders.
your knees against your chest
whispering white lies (wishes)

Time against motion:

It’s empty but clasped hands on the clockface
Grasping and being pulled apart
with every second—
tick tock.

Empty so you can cry a little
(you know, ‘cause it only hurts a little)

Like snow on the windshield
it’s just water, it just wipes away
swish swish

Thank your mother for the mistakes she’s made
(thank her that you lay this way)

Your wet face beneath your shoulders, your knees against your chest
Grasping and being pulled apart.

tick tock.

In Imitation of Milton

On the Burning of My Papers

All, all is lost! The waves of fire fought
In rooms where they had flared contained before,
With bitter blade in battle, and blazing roar
Engulfed my work; it transformed all to naught
That in the thirsty swords of flame were caught.
As I contemplate poems mine, now no more,
Forgot midst ashes, burning at my core
Fester these thoughts of fame unclaimed. Distraught
Out cries my muse, “O Miser! Pinch not hope
As one does coin. Be not wounded, but write:
Your labours yet still more your mind contain.
Make known, a brighter world beneath your scope
Lies than can flame diminish. Pen to light
The change from ‘All is lost!’ to all regained.