Shadows Climb In My Cold Room

How I long to sleep tonight
forget these thoughts
and rest
Ease my body free 
of anxiety and worry
but the more I try
the more I fail
I fidget fast, roll in frustration
cursing my debt
and conversations that won’t end
Where are those waves of darkness
when will they wash my brain
Where is that tide of sleep
of empty-headedness 
of ignorance
and bliss…

Six hours now
I’ve studied ceiling cracks
A new day hangs two hours away
when creeping up in me
come hunger-pains from hell
itchy hair and sweaty palms
I drop so close to sleep
then jolt back into the room
a cushion spared to shield my eyes
from that solar-flare
that blinking clock
And shadows climb
in my cold room
now the sun, it rises
soon so do I
not blessed with dreams
or ignorance
or bliss…

[2006]

Thank you for reading.

Give your eyes a break and listen to some poems

Vodka

Do you still see the ghosts
those aged faces, dried crimson blood
Do you still shiver in the dark
with drugged malaise, false memories
trapped in shifting rooms
as shadows gather and clamber over you
tight chest and splintering palms
Clutching at the floor
slack-jawed and eager
Holding on to stay afloat
in vodka
in vodka, gin and brandy…

[2004]

Thanks for reading this very early poem. I think this was heavily influenced by Martin Amis’ second novel Dead Babies, which I’d finished reading at the time.

All my poems.