I’ve suffered from chronic insomnia since childhood. That subtle, momentary wrinkle in the air as you settle into bed that tells you that beyond this point sleep is not an option. And then, recumbent, the staring across the room towards whatever minute source of light might glimmer in a corner as your partner breathes deep beside you and the house ticks into the night…
INSOMNIA 2.
Night. From the carbon window
I stare back, a deconstructed mask
amongst trace elements of moonlight,
rain, black leaves. I am part shapes
remembered and part shapes
from out of the sleep of reason.
In this cone of silence just
before the dawn, the shadow
world is palpable: gods
and monsters glide and crawl
by my garden gate. Half-dreams,
uncertain memories, dust devils rolling.
Here and now, I sense, is the pagan
junction where all things meet:
skeletons into flesh, ghosts
into plasma, rumours, fears, the whole
arcana hard wired into the dark.
The night and I, strange company
in a world without hours, no sound
closer than the distant rhyme
of a long train running.
And then, when I turn away
towards my own dark, there’s just
my breath and the falling rain.
From: ANCIENT LIGHTS by Dick Jones
Pic from: http://moca.virtual.museum/donnie2004/images/insom
INSOMNIA 2. – sound file.
sisyphus 