Time-lapse from my bed

Afterwards, he lay in bed writing a poem.
Outside, a wind played on the roof tiles.
The first snow had come today but it had cleared
and now the wind came blundering out like a drunkard,
slipping about on the icy roads and falling into bushes,
waking all the neighbours.

She asked him to turn off the light, she couldn’t sleep.
He lay in the dark with his hands behind his head,
watching the leafy shadows dancing on the ceiling.
She slept and slowly the night went quiet and still
and the angled strips of street-lit moonlight
crept steadily along the walls.

They had promised the comet of the century
but after all the noise nobody ever got to see it.
They said its course took it too close to the sun.
He knew the risks of getting too close to the sun.
But he would glance out the window when it was clear
just in case there was a miracle.

He spent most of Christmas in bed with a fever,
mountain peaks and fleeing suns spinning incessantly
as he cocooned himself in sweat inside the sheets.
Then on New Year’s Day he was woken by the boys
jumping on the bed, and she was tugging at the duvet,
“Good morning, wake up,” they said.

Resurrection

Death’s breath sweats through me
in wisps of frozen broken needles
that linger in amongst the bed sheets
pulled damp against my throat
like morning cemeteries.

But  I have seen her calculations
writ on the tombs of widowed pillows
and I shall ask her what her name is
and she will wring her hands in mourning
in empty cemeteries.

 

This is how I healed myself

“And you put potion in my tea.
It kills the faithless and resurrects the free”

I quarantined myself indoors.
My shadow parked in doorways.
I haunted the floorboards
and lusted the twilight.
I abstained from food and conversation.
This is the slumber.
It comes before salvation.

Then I lay and made by breath precise and low.
As I had been taught. As I had been taught,
I slowed my heartbeat to a pendulum
and stretched the outside minutes
into inner days and elongated shadows.
And I sense again:
my arms are warm and heavy
and my forehead cool.
There is a mask on my face
to smooth the anxious lines.
My mind is calm now,
my body is relaxed.

And I walked through each coloured room of my house.
I walked each coloured room,
and descended down the numbered floors twice.
I inhaled the memory of every colour.
I traced my finger along each number.
Then I descended into the basement.
The light is black but I can clearly see.
There is a room here.
The unnamed room where my spirit sleeps.

In that unnamed darkness
like many times before
I sat at the ancient cabinet,
covered in pen knife wounds.
It is covered in pen knife runes.
And I pulled out the puzzle-box drawers one by one
And I studied the jars, studied the jars.
Each jar holds something.

There is a jar with water. The water had clouded.
I cleaned the water and brushed the green strands
until the water was clear and light played in the glass.
Now my body is cleansed and my vision is clear.

There is a jar with a feather.
The feather sits heavy at the bottom, undisturbed by air.
I give it my breath and freely now it floats within the jar.
Now my mood is fine and my soul feels light.

There is a jar with a black sphere.
It bounces lazily against the walls as I lift it.
The sphere must float tightly in the centre,
held by springs of mind and purpose.
I force the sphere into the centre
and it rests there tight and loaded.
My mind returns to focus.

There is a glass cone.
Inside is clear liquid of fresh scent –
cucumber, watermelon, crushed leaves.
It is closed tightly.
I open the cap and let free the clean air
and the sweet anxiety of spring –
and I breathe the anticipation
of a sunny weekend’s freedom.

And I breath the sun that I have summoned.
I draw it in through my nose.
It rises heavy and warm like syrup.
I exhale it down to my stomach.
And my body floods with it
and it rushes from my stomach
in a giant column.
And the naked twisting beast
that has devoured my heart and liver
in its daily introspection of my cliff-top chains,
sees its death let loose from my drawn limbs,
and screams alone return to its devastated god.

I have taken your potion and it turns out that I am free.
My love, I am Prometheus. And I will give you light.

–   o   –

Best read as a follow-on from my previous post.  This is a bit of properly blank verse which is a bit of a rarity for me.  Rhyming this simply did not sound right , except for the first verse (although even there it’s an example of my “hidden rhyme” style).

When I am weak

I feel weak.
I feel like this for weeks on end
And all the time that I could spend on love
I spend on taking love instead.

The dying dead,
They taunt me in my bed and gather
Around my dreams with tiresome chatter and laments:
“When will you join our happy ranks?”

And my past arrives in tears
And delves inside my aching ear with its needles
And coloured threads of past regrets and needless giving,
And all those vows I left unsaid.

And through this mist
I feel your gentle kiss and I can see
Our children laughing. And you put potion in my tea.
It kills the faithless and resurrects the free.

– o –