4am and the world is unmoving,
until I step outside.
The air is warm and still and
the terracotta tiles are cool beneath my feet
Quietude absolute.
A half-moon headlight casts my shadow
A scattering of stars against a black velvet backdrop
Mars; loud, red and angry
and the owls compete for who can hoot the loudest
and I, alone, breathe the morning
and I, alone, feel the morning
and I, alone, become the morning
and I, alone, am the morning.
Black mountain against a grey marble sky
No technicolor sunrise this morning
I beat you to it
There are more than fifty shades of grey
in this sunrise.
This morning is Cagney and Sheridan in
Angels with Dirty Faces
This morning is Bogart and Bacall in
The Big Sleep
This morning is a noir dream
This morning is black and white.
Clock tick, ticking in the silence of the apartment
or
the apartments because there are nine in the block
and
I’m the only one awake at this time,
in
these hours where I should be elsewhere
and
not writing, or reading or dropping benzodiazepine for sleeping
and
my body aches for sleep
but
my mind tells my body to fuck off
and
get up, get going and do something
and
I’m on the sofa with a pen in one hand
and
a notebook in the other and a book by my side
and
the clock keeps ticking
and
to think that somewhere the sun is rising
and
somewhere else it’s setting on another day
as
the momentum of our forward roll takes us around
a
big ball of light and heat that keeps us here,
alive,
going nowhere except forward;
rolling, rolling
in space time, in real time,
(who’s got the time anyway?)
as
somewhere to the east of me the sun is coming up
and
somewhere to the west of me it’s going down
as
10,000 lives have just left
and
10,000 have just begun
and
we just keep on rolling. Somewhere.
Night,
split into two:
broken lines
black and white
drawn and then fade
merge
and become grey,
like the dawn;
if it ever arrives.
My eyes are heavy
and my face is sliding
like some lost Dalí canvass;
long dripping clocks
leaking slow time:
sluggish minutes
and
creeping hours
in the long dragging night.
Early Sunday morning walk,
hungover.
Squinting in the morning light
Cappuccino with a double shot of coffee
and eyes that finally open
with the hoarse caw of the crow
and the hoarse voice of the barmaid
who must smoke a packet
or spend her life shouting
above the noise of the cutlery
being put in its place
as the coffee machine whirs
and the people sit
over their Sunday morning papers
as the cappuccino goes down
and the day opens up.
The stairs crush my knees and steal my breath
and I get to the top and I ring the bell
and I enter the surgery but the waiting room
is empty except for the noise
because the window is open
and the noise from the street competes
with the radio newsreader’s urgency
to tell me the headlines and I can’t hear them
but maybe it’s a blessing because
I don’t want to hear them because
everyone has a missile pointed at someone else
and it’s always someone else’s fault
and everyone is trigger-happy
or God-fearing happy-clappy
and it’s mine versus yours anyway
and now the smell of the floor cleaner joins in with the noise
and the headlines as they vie for my senses
and it makes no sense and my knees hurt
and I can’t hear myself think
and I can’t feel myself breathe
and then the doctor comes out
and asks me how I am…
I’m here, aren’t I?
I like to feel the cool air soothe my skin
as I stand outside on the balcony
and breathe the morning air.
I like to hear the leaves in the breeze-blown trees
chitter-chatter amongst themselves
in a language I don’t understand.
I like to see the rain roll down the window
and the streams run in the gutters,
now clean and ready to start again.
I like to watch the clouds chase each other
across the sky, racing in the wind,
making shapes only I can see.
Oh, and it’s Friday.
The deep-water sound of someone pissing from a height at 4.30 in the morning
before the first blackbird has it in him
to wake up and start singing
and no car hums the tune of rubber on tarmac
and the night has its own sound
a no-sound
a “fuck me, well hello again, it’s you” sound
and I join in the silence,
eyes wide open and mouth closed shut
and I breathe in and I breathe out
and it doesn’t do much good and I turn over
on my side and wonder if I should read by reading light
or just get up and kiss the night
goodbye
so I say hi to my pen and paper and I want to write a story,
any story,
about the world and what goes on in it, within it
and all I end up writing, again, is my own.
Damp sheet,
summer heat
I turn my pillow
over and over
and fuck off mosquito, you bitch
(it’s the females that make you itch)
and now the early morning crows
are crowing, or cawing
while the neighbourhood is still snoring;
except me
and I’m turning
like an undecided Brexit MP
as I can’t for the life of me
cool down
so I get up
and stroll on the balcony
in my shorts
it’s just me and the crows anyway
in this summer heat.
The longest day,
the shortest night
The summer solstice.
The sun rising between two tall stones.
The Pagan rites of five thousand years,
or more.
Time keeping time
Too hot to sleep
A midsummer night’s dream,
or nightmare.
Summer sticky heat.
The sweat from a thousand pores,
or more.
The longest day,
the shortest night.
Wake up, stuffed nose, can’t breathe
can’t see, light switch, where’s the light switch?
Get up, still house, silence, silence
and the clock tick-tocks the night away.
Walk around, bare feet, cold feet
need a glass of water I’m parched.
Wine and bitter mouth, that last digestive
getting festive on a Saturday, as you do.
Sunday’s here and I’m the only one to see it
and when it’s time to get up I’ll go back to bed.
Not much to do but write and read and
Lester Bangs talks to me of Lou Reed
and The Velvet Underground.
Well, at least it’s Sunday Morning.
The black night draped
in mourning
for the morning.
The first feelers of light
yet to be felt.
The first rays of the sun
yet to be raised
above the horizon,
as the long and tiresome
night drags on.
While the world outside
and me inside
wait for spring.
January
damp and cold January
I have a cough and I cough and I splutter.
Does it matter? Does it matter?
My cough plumbs the depth of my lungs in the night like my soul plumbs the depths of despair in winter and the clouds…
…and the clouds are pigeon shit-grey and they roll in then roll over then roll away and leave me…
bathed in monochrome
and the rain…and the rain.
It’s water and I’m dancing
I drank more water than what fell to earth last autumn
so we rain-danced for a drenching soul-cleaning and yet…
it’s January
damp and cold January
let it rain, let it rain, let it rain
pour your monochrome down upon me.
That old adage about “write what you know” – I should laugh in its face and stick my fingers in its eyes.
I started this blog , as it says on the tin (well, the heading), as a pin-board for airing poems and flash-fiction first drafts and ideas. Of late, after a barren summer, I’ve hit a creative vein, with no idea why except it runs in tandem with another bout of worse-than-usual sleeplessness. I don’t want this blog to become a shrine to insomnia so things will change in 2018 (that’s two days and, possibly, two nights…).
This is this blog’s last insomniac poetic hurrah! If I couldn’t write anything else then I would stick my pen where the sun doesn’t shine. Luckily, I can and I have been (just not here, o bored and tired reader).
Have a great New Year everyone and thanks for looking in.
Chris
_______________________________
And still the treacherous night lingers on
and pulls me along with it
incapable of leaving me behind
in a dreaming world of slumber;
the fucker.
And still my words spill across the page
and takes me away for a while,
pulling me into its world
where pen and hand work in unison;
the saviour.
And still my eyes remain open
and my awakened mind rages
full of ideas that fall on paper
as my head wants to fall;
on my pillow.
and yet, and yet…
and yet I love these early hours;
the quiet, the still, the night sounds
– or early morning sounds – take your pick.
A slave to the whore of the morning
fresh on her rounds and as yet untouched,
the sheets still unblemished
and the rose cheeks of her sunrise.
Mind muddled, befuddled
hours awake,
hours reading,
hours doing everything but sleeping
crawling on my knees
to the dawn queen.
Lying there in the dark
looking at every darkened shape
of every angle of every wall
and feel every stubbed toe
on every piece of furniture
lying there in the dark;
like me.
Alarm clock; you are redundant,
again. As ever.
Your services are limited
except when you tell me
how long I’ve been lying there awake.
As I crawl on my knees
to the dawn queen.
I thought black was black
as in: the night was pitch black
but when I close the windows
and pull down the shades
I see shades
of black:
pure black,
light black,
eerie black and
rich black
which is not pitch black;
the night tattooed on my mind
With my eyes closed
I see black
With my eyes open
I see black
As I wait to see
the grey of day
Awake. Again.
Counting down the small hours.
Counting out the night.
“Come to bed, baby.”
No one sleeps anymore. Have you noticed?
Curse of modern man.
Stress of modern life.
Stress? Ah yes, that new old chestnut.
It’s not exactly the same as being kept awake by the crackle and spit of the fire you need to constantly tend as you peer into the darkness looking for the reflected firelight in the eyes of a predator; a sabre-tooth tiger, for example.
The caveman knew stress.
Did the caveman sleep?
Did his weary body recover after a day traipsing across the plains, spear in hand;
looking for soul food and a place to sleep?
“Oh, I haven’t slept in years”.
It’s the arse-end of 2017.
What’s my excuse?
What’s my sabre-tooth tiger, baby?
In the dark,
a candlelight in my head
as I’m pulled from infinite dreams
(of what?)
Eyes closed but the mind
opened to a thousand possibilities
in the coming dawn
(at least I hope it is)
I want to hear the morning’s chatter
among the birds
and their song of the morning
Tortuous night
in pain, in the dark.
Piano wire nerves scream
in a white-heat silence,
searing through me,
blazing as I lie
longing for the morning
to bathe me in light
and chase away
this tortuous night.
Monday dawned, lumpy, grey and wet; weather to add a few kilos to already burdened shoulders. The Saturday sun had already done another circuit of the Earth and was now on it’s second; unseen.
He felt good. As most people struggled with the idea of getting up and going to work, he felt Monday as a renewal. Its sober slap in the face a reawakening.
As the rain fell and washed the streets so did this Monday morning cleanse him. Its sodden purgatorial followed the weekend’s excess (was it really excessive?). Yes; a whole new week lay ahead and who knew what it would bring? He was back in the seat, hands on the wheel, foot on the peddle and the long, sweeping curve was coming up.
Morning
Dark, dark morning
If you were an emotion
you’d be despair
If you were a state of body
you’d be fatigue
If you were a state of mind
you’d be confusion
At this hour my brainwaves
should be delta or theta
but I’m full-blown conscious
brainwave beta
If you were a book
you’d be Skeleton crew
because we that walk the corridors of night
are few
If you were a song
you’d be The Sound of Silence:
Hello darkness, my old friend.
My pen
is a stranger to me,
estranged from me.
L’etranger.
My pen
has sat for weeks,
idle, spent, silent.
Oublié.
My pen
turns in my fingers,
once a part of me.
Perdu.
My pen
welcome back, great
to see you again.
Ça va mon ami?
Hanging in the air
in spectral suspension,
in anticipation.
Then, animation:
a slow sweep,
a bob, a curtsey,
a pirouette.
Framed in light,
a dancer’s spotlight.
I get up from my chair
and in the slant of sunlight
through the Venetian blind
a million others go dancing.
Dust.
3am,
the devil’s hour.
The wind shrieks through the trees
and on a balcony
(mine?)
sends a flower pot flying.
Horizontal rain
sprays the blinds
in a machine-gun scatter.
With heavy head
and heavy lids
I sit
and wonder why.
Once in a while I look back over my previous writing just to try and gauge whether, over time, it’s improving. I think it is. I also look for patterns. Patterns reveal the state during a certain period. My writing of late, especially the poetry, has taken a darkened path.
10 years ago I started having massive sleep disruption. This quickly grew into chronic insomnia, which I chose to ignore at my peril for a few years. 6 years ago I went under the ‘care’ of the local hospital, following visits to psychiatric specialists who tried to fathom out what the problem was. I was depressed, apparently. No shit, Sherlock. A few years of sleeping no more than 4 hours a night was conducive to wiping the smile off my face. They put boxes of pharmaceuticals in my hand and sent me away.
During this time I started writing. I was trying to read a book, unfortunately I can’t remember the title, which was so bad I gave up after 20-odd pages, which is something I never do. One dark morning I decided I would try and write something, surely it couldn’t be as bad as that crap I’d just given to the charity shop?
Writing became a regular in my life and it helped me where no amount of Benzodiazepine or Escitalopram could. In fact, I stopped taking anything after two years, against the hospital’s wishes. Fine, the pharmaceuticals help you sleep, but they leave you feeling hollow, devoid of emotion. I decided I’d rather not sleep. So here I am, not sleeping.
For anyone who doesn’t know, insomnia is a bastard. Mentally, it’s a dark and lonely place that leads ever downwards, where you will eventually come to your own private Niflhel. It cleaves you open and wrenches your tortured soul from your body while leaving you running on empty.
You stop telling people. You have to, because all you hear is “Yeah, I had a terrible night as well.” What? You can’t explain and they can’t understand so your interactions become sullen standoffs. You spend the day with a head full of cotton-wool; thinking becomes laborious and even the most banal of tasks requires consideration and reconsideration. Clear thinking is a reality enjoyed by other people.
Physically it leaves you hollow, like a wind-blown wheat husk dried in the summer sun, light and directionless yet always hoping for a respite, a resting place from its torments.
On the other hand, creatively it has been a wonderful input and output, where my notebook, 2H pencil and I join hands in the early hours and together we chase away the demons that frequently slip the pillow out from under my head. Those deep still hours of the morning welcome me, absorb me in their serenity and give me time and space to write. Ideas form and become words because of this. The majority of what you will find here was written while the world outside slept.
I hope reading this blog gives you at least a little of the pleasure it has given me.
