SONG OF THE SLEEPLESS


             If I fall asleep
          even silence disturbs me —
             a distant light, or
          the rustle of my own breath
          drags me from the deepest dream.

             I stir at the sound
          a poem makes in my mind —
             or a face just glimpsed
          in the street comes to haunt me
          like some close friend's, long since dead.

             Ideas — good or
          bad, or just pointless, destroy
             their own silences
          with turned pages' death rattles
          of nervous laughter, the void.

             Is there no way now
          to shield my slumbers against
             aural tormentors?
          (I can't help it if I have
          ears sharpened by blank pages).


           © James Kirkup, 2008




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