somnia

at the precipice
there are witnesses
and in the long night
a freeze-frame stillness

something rattles
refuses sleep
the day was a dream
to which this darkness
is a mirror
turned to the wall

ruin
my redemption
give me back those rocks
onto which
I’ll crash again

dissipate
end
despair
only there
do i notice
the paper bag palms
shade’s own shadow
the perfume of fire
dawn’s chill
and the hunger of disaster

amid cinders
of belief
when I have died again
something yet stirs
as if
another life

so many souls
blow around me
some are ghosts
some children
and all walk
at different speeds

i become
a shepherd
(or his dog)
a conductor
(or merely the baton)
with only this purpose
to compose a life

the poet’s eyes
have no secret
and the last line
of defence
against despair
comes under fire
from the cool
strategic
ambitious
and timely

so the poet
is not an artist
according
to current definitions
and a poem
is a flower
of the evil
which threatens
all poems

a poem doesn’t look
or see
nor does a poet need eyes
for eyes judge
and all judgement
is well-wrapped hatred

while eyes
necessarily flicker
and deceive
not least their owners

don’t go away now
i need your sight
just to hold me
in its gaze and light
just for someone
to say i’m here

i too often sleep
allowing wolves to steal me
and in that dark
i see storms
relentless and unyielding
hear birds
frantically repeating
as if they were
more scared than i
of falling off the branch
and slippping under muddy hooves
of night’s mares

i touched a love
blue as sky
and henceforth
could not rely
on gross exchange
that steals each gift
now i stop every game
that scores a point
and send away unsung
all that seeks applause

the pound shop
won’t accept my coin
and having failed
to translate beauty
i turn into a judge
albeit one who’s brown-paper wig
proclaims a mock-severe brow

in western streets
i am derided
by an impromptu jury
of prosecutors
who throw pebbles
(and not the charming kind)

they hound me
terrified
into a suburban lawn
where i rap
on netted double-glazing

inside
a day-woman
frightened by my panic
stirs
and i cry out
not for rescue
but solely for her witness

sometimes
all we seek
is to have our sentence
proved beyond doubt
such is our innocence
to play
in the shadow
with vultures
and wrecks
to give yourself
to the waves
and ride

to perform
the dance
of the rocks
and to rust
with biscuits
in the sun

waking
at the edge
of the forest
in the greatest
of pains
in the thick
of the night
and low
in the valley
so that
windows
show only
hillsides
with birches dimly gleaming
and a pelmet
of fallen stars

i howl
but as ever
mere water
is cure
for the well
and a complex world
boils down again
to a simplicity
which confounds
men’s ambitions
to comprehend

the pain
is the kind
that can’t be cried-for
a loneliness
other arms
only compound
and the impossiibility
of going-on
is nonetheless
a full-tank
of poison gas

I tumble
from unfamiliar beds
leaving love
hurt, bemused,
but never bruised

i swig the panocea
and scribble
in a half light
on limb-numbing floors
and in this moment
of abandonment
am retrieved
by macabre allies
who rescue
something
from the ashes of the night

not me
but a kind of relative
a servant
a sister
a most distant cousin
undescribed
scratches out
a ouija song
and cries
to keep connected
to this world

here and now
silence hurts the ears
like a pressure deep in the sea
it is a nothing that is all
and a thickness
that is time
as if night had sunk
like a cloud of lead
to suffocate
the sleepless

when sometimes
in the night
untied
i drift too far
from god
huge windows
offer vistas
only of a glossy black
that stares straight back
at what I know
too well

©2003 Paul O'Kane

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