Don't sleep
Don't sleep
I begin to
Like you
A little bit more
I shift and sigh
Say your name
Fatigue rolls
Somewhere by
But, alert I
Imagine
So many paintings
To make for you

You mumble
Childishly
Your laughter
Is glittery
I wish
For so little
I wish too
Intensely
Dont wipe me
With a stiffened cloth
Soaked
In turpentine
And a hundred hues
Dont stir me
I might be disturbed
Out of skill
Out of thought
Onto a burlap scene
Grotesque
Picturesque
And so, so true

Don't move
Or I might too
I might too
Become a facet
Among the facets
Of your horrors
I might
Become art
Might become
Beautiful
In that strange
Black way
Of art

Dont sleep
Talk to me
Speak to me
Let us be
Normalities
Let us
Hold
Technicalities
Forget
Sentimentality
In the silly blue painting
Of an eyeless pretty
Smooth and porcelain
Perfectly closed

No night
To mourn into
Dissolve into
To stumble,
To tremble into
Don't sleep
I become too much alone
Shrivel, burnt sienna
I cannot move alone
I become the paintings
That I fear to paint
I become the sombre
Debris of your laughter
Cold, blue
Featureless
A moonlit night
Nothing but red
You don't know
That I like you
In my head
Come back
Come back

I want to talk to you, now
that the sadness is thickening
in the air, now
that I begin to flee the night

Sombre rue settles, ergot
of rye: i feel a blackened wheat,
I feel contorted,
and worn, crumpled, contaminated
crude

now, I am past again, i am
faint, fossil, begone from the city
I roll in little tremors
through sandpaper streets
a

franctic brushwork of the winds
I am canvas, paint, the face I hate
a feeble cry
of the stray cats in crooks
you

you make me so, so thin
I buzz a wasp in my sleep, i begin
to hate the sleep
I dont... I dont want to sleep
I want to disappear tonight
I want to talk to you

innocent blue
it’s not the truth
it’s just the story I tell to you

say, gone now
all the old times forgotten
we flicker away in bliss

roll the dice
select this, forget then
never let it go then

I was just bored
watching the night
I had it all, I had it all

I need it now
covered in fade, taken from me
rolled up and stored

artefact of old
I want so much to hold
I become small again

I begin to hear too much again
see too large
speak too thin again

now it sits by
in pieces renewed
pretty and gold

hope that you find it
hope that I too
could find it for you

I begin to hate all art
why do you love me,
why do you not

I rub my fingers mad again
I make all faces ugly, ugly
why do you flee me,
why do you not

then I make strange things
I share too much,
in my strange things
then I boast, then I gloat
then I hide, hide, hide

then I want to clothe in paint
I want to burn all art
why do you wait,
why do you wait

It is you for me
Through the summer winds
The winter winds
And colours else
That may curl and go

I linger there
I touch your hair
Two sweethearts
In the good blue room
Tip-toeing
Like my brush
And twisting
Like yours

Two painters
In simple linen
Turpentine, like
Your hair
It is you for me

Wordless? Could I write a  poem with silence?
the skid-slide of the road
the burden of a sudden night on me

Sometimes, I fall asleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand
little book open... it may seem so lovely
look at her!
huddled up with her little thoughts
a true writer, that child!
but- but I preferred sleep!
sleep was pleasurable and it did not run
I preferred pleasure to poetry, madam!
please take the label back

But...
sometimes the pen runs out of ink
and the ballpen stutters
and I get teary-eyed in the dark night
I engrave the paper with the ballpen nib
trace the words out in the morning
sometimes I tear the paper with the ballpen nib
and then weep

Sometimes, like this time, the lamp dies
I press the buttons of the AC remote
every four seconds (I counted)
write in the light of its lit-up screen
Sometimes I write on my hand
and when the hand runs out, I go to the arm
I write on pants, on tissue-paper pieces
Sometimes, there is light and pen and ink and...
and you know exactly what.

I could never call myself a poet
the word stuck, a jumble-mess
of all my literary inadequacies
rolled up to hardness, taped to throat
I... I roll up like a cat or a rug
words come by on a conveyer belt
and I stamp each with 'unoriginal'
unoriginal, unoriginal
a moving queue of unoriginal
so many words! the page is empty
I become unoriginal
other times...
so little words (like this time)! the page is full
I become unoriginal
Then I get so upset, I toss poetry away
like crumpled paper, roll over on the bed
an upset lover; I keep an arm back though
for some little touch


Oh my
I think I'm going to sleep
with the pen uncapped in my hand


Or maybe...


No, put it away
we are done for the night

Some admiration, please
something akin to a pill or
a sudden welcome warmth
I want to be put to sleep

a sleep of no tremors or waking
but not death, not quite
like satisfaction or tea, some instilling
of the sea in me
I thought I had quite grasped
a thread or two
but I am paper now
I have no word to write
no light to write in
I have no thought, and I cannot think

some affection would do
some small touch
some bowl to melt into
some flame as well

I want the night to stay
I want to sleep it away
Poetry is for nothing now
I write to satiate
to not weep, or to not fiddle
to remember, or to clear up
to love poetry
or to gather myself up

But the bed is warm and still a pond
and I wish to weep
I wish words were there to stay
I wish they could pat or touch
stoke my hair with an inhuman presence
some song would do
some voice/whisper/word
some sigh or solidity, some affirmation
I am so lonely
I will eat myself up