I am not ready for September

For the dVerse prompt “August transitions‘:

I am not ready for September,
for another Spring.

I would be satisfied to stay curled into myself,
fat and white as a cockchafer
burrowed into the soil
and sleeping snug in the earth,
inhaling only the exhalations of decay,
of the slow composting of last season’s growth.

Surely it is too soon for Spring,
for blossom scent and the lengthening of days
and the bursting forth of new life?
I am not ready.

But somehow August is half done.
The wattles are shouting
their golden threats of spring
and even the photocopier
meeps for more paper like a baby bird.

I am not ready to leave the snug of winter.
I am not ready for another Spring.

small hours

I dread these “small” hours
these dark hours
these interminable hours,
stretching unbearably
while I watch for the line
between windowsill and blind to lighten

and I am envious
envious to the point of madness
of all these around me
wrapped in their cosy blanket of sleep

it will not come to me
it creeps near,
comes tapping on my scalp like rain
but this impermeable skull keeps me in
and keeps sleep out

hour after hour
all these small hours

I am starving at the feast-

they take their little slice of death
to see them fresh for another day
and I look on at their placid faces,
hear their slow, satisfied breaths
and envy them until I hate them

until I no longer wish to join them
but just for there to be no more days

and no more “small” hours

0500 December 30th, tachycardia

The rooster sounds reveille, but I am already awake
and swimming upwards from a dream of drowning
into bathwater-warm air, saturated with the night’s breaths.
At least in my dream the water was cool.

Sinking back, submerging again into sleep
the flickering in my chest, in my scalp, pulls me up.
Morning meds, a glance at the sky, and back to bed.
Nightmares are a side effect, supposedly,
but I long to sink back into dreams.

The rooster has woken the magpies, their songs flow –
silver streams, winding and twining through
a dawn of grey freshwater pearl,
leading me back to cool waters.

0800 27th Dec, vicarious snoozing

0800
Ginger-mutt is caught out, but he sees it is just me and knows there will be no roar of “get off the couch!”. The rules are different before anyone else is up.

those little slices of death…

…how I love them.

 

For the dVerse Monday quadrille challenge: “Sleepy times“. 

 

That moment of surrender,
when the struggle is given up.
That moment of relief,
when responsibility is abdicated,
and cares released like birds.
That moment of release
into a little slice of death.
I could live
just for that blessed moment
of falling
asleep.

 

I’ve always found the most supremely enjoyable time to fall asleep is when struggling to stay awake in a lecture or while watching a movie.  I haven’t yet fallen asleep in a meeting at work, but I’m looking forward to it when I’m closer to retirement. I plan so snore ostentatiously through many meetings until I’m offered a pre-retirement package.    

let the clouds roll in

Let the clouds roll in, shrinking the world down around us
to just this valley, tucked among the hills,
to just this clearing in the forest,
to just this house,

Sunday morning summer ha’sonnets I

The cicada
song fills the air,

morning haiku I

The windchime clatters,
thunder growls around the house –
winter come prowling.

The morning commute:
(hooray for isolation!)
bring laptop to bed.

Thanks Vixen of Verse, for the inspiration!   

Morphia (an aubade to sleep)

Of late she has taunted me,
teased
and played coy,

wind-rode (insomnia)

Wind-rode,
mind tethered,
I have missed the tide of sleep.
Dragged by anger,
and awash with dismay,
I rise
and walk,
trying to outpace
the disappointments
of the day.