In The Swollen Hours
After In The Huge Hours14th August 2019
Poem
In the swollen hours when my bed is the last—
as though sorrow’s punctuation
—& mind inhales cold August night, scoffing
the dates leading to thirty-fourth,
I think, amongst the paintings; family portraits
where spirits in silver gelatin shelve the
once-holies, the remarkable—how much I’ve erred
—how joy dilapidated, (windows smashed
subsidence, raked by vines, neighbourhood
kids to kick & write names, leave newspapers,
tell ghost stories, & pleasant six weeks
)I thoughtful the damage done & held
to my chest the silence of my failings
the fluorescent pink & electricblue edges
of my sadness, the final shadows of day
& there’s no space, no sentence too great, even cities
reach for the nape of older frowns;
at last, when I fall down, godless & solitaire
there is the echoed golden streetlight of broken blinds
& I taste the flavour of life.
as though sorrow’s punctuation
—& mind inhales cold August night, scoffing
the dates leading to thirty-fourth,
I think, amongst the paintings; family portraits
where spirits in silver gelatin shelve the
once-holies, the remarkable—how much I’ve erred
—how joy dilapidated, (windows smashed
subsidence, raked by vines, neighbourhood
kids to kick & write names, leave newspapers,
tell ghost stories, & pleasant six weeks
)I thoughtful the damage done & held
to my chest the silence of my failings
the fluorescent pink & electricblue edges
of my sadness, the final shadows of day
& there’s no space, no sentence too great, even cities
reach for the nape of older frowns;
at last, when I fall down, godless & solitaire
there is the echoed golden streetlight of broken blinds
& I taste the flavour of life.
