EARLY TO BED — EARLY TO RISE


          Waking at three, he begins to feel that
          he has broken the long back of the night
          and begins to suspect the coming day
          of breaking and entering though without
          the fuss of a court case — He is his own
          intruder, a robber of unfinished
          dreams, that started as soon as his head touched
          the immaculate lace pillow of the nine
          o'clock news — Six hours are ample, surely,
          for someone no longer a growing boy?

          Six hours is surely enough for him now
          as he begins to feel a stiffening
          of the night's uninvited member who
          like some unwelcome intruder breaks
          at a touch all the locks, stops all the clocks —
          a grown boy going to bed with the first
          booming bell of Big Ben's nine o'clock news.
          — Waking at three he gets the Home Service
          the ever-ready companion of our homeless days.


           © James Kirkup, 2008




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