I am insomniac again.
My mind a whirlywhirl of words,
spun up and spinning through the web I weave,
from textures of the roads I’ve trod,
among the silks of fragile papers of old books,
smelling of mothballs and of too much glue.
It all collides – a kaleidoscope of stills,
the fragments, shards of ancient teacups,
fade in and out of focus, stained by dusk.
Suspended octopus of stars, rays cold
and sharp as scalpels, they, too, fade;
the patient’s blood spared a final exit.
The darkness furls itself into the fog of dawn.
Its tendrils a soft calling, hued in greens
of childhood’s grass and mossy hills, soft
as they’ll never be again and softer
than they’d been.
Alone, as always, in my dreams I trudge,
not for being weary, but for lack of shoes.
The grass grows knobbly, gritty, turns to pale
stone and the dust of dirty streets. Night.
The lamp-posts cast surreal, brassy shadows
glinting off human faces, marble through the glass of the too-tall windows.
I slow and watch and listen for the names
of people I had lived now hiding
behind the tulle curtains.
More delicate than words
and worlds, and just a breath too far
from where I huddle underneath the heavy wool
that scratches me awake. Alone.
Untamable as ever, though older, in fact,
too old to so selectively remember and forget
where I had left the pieces of the dreams I’d borrowed.
They glint at me, accusing, stark in the too-bright morning light,
Like ancient teacup shards, stained with
unfinished
(Image: Picture prompt # 1 for @Rensoul17's Where Poets Dream and Cry Poetry Challenge: https://steemit.com/wpchallenge/@rensoul17/21n8o6-where-poets-dream-and-cry)
With special thanks to the talented folks at the Isle of Write for all the help with this piece.
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