September 2004

Photo by E. P. Meagher

 

The Hand Gets Heavier

 

It starts with a rush of wind and the red-eye taking off, 

A rumble of engines in the rail yard, a passing mail

Truck, or a convergence of all three, conspiring with

Nature to keep me on my toes into the wee hours.

 

I search for that tidal drift of sleep to take me anywhere

 

But into my own magnetic vortex of terrible nightmare.

I know where it awaits me and why sleep is impossible.

I creaks on every timber, stirs on the prowl in the eaves,

Tips over cans and lids with a waking force of a scream.

 

If I could concentrate on mere physical disturbance in

A restless neighborhood, or simply track the titter of

Household noises it’s years are accustomed to, my task

Of self-hypnosis would soon take me on into oblivion.

 

If only a soothing rain, a constant monotone, its uniform

Din of auditory uselessness would lend itself to undo the

Tension of my inventiveness, a post-illness syndrome of  

My flashback host, my past events that refuse to stay put. 

 

In dead shadows, stubborn as stains, unwilling to relent

the haunting battle of sleepless nerves, my circuits pop, 

My digestion growls like an empty refrigerator. At dawn,

Just beyond gray shelves of self-accumulation, come the

 

Sounds of birds, early risers, evolved insight that it helps

To write this down. The hand gets heavier with each word.  

I search for that drift of logic to will me anywhere god-like

Stability goes, and worries resolve with a first hint of rose.

photo by Richard Cox

Copyright Jimmy Warner, 2004