Tired Brain spits words in fits and starts The internal running commentary misfiring badly Ideas stuck in bottlenecks Traffic backed up and down the on-ramps Leading off the congested thoughtways Tired Stormwater overflow pours out of blocked drains Sidling up the gutters of fallen leaves And other assorted detritus of modern existence Spewing out over footpaths and under cars And over the tops of the boots of downtrodden dawn treaders Tired Mountain pass impassable under it’s mercurial precipitate mask Features only glimpsed in snatches Like looking through a white picket fence while running Thought trees bunching up around the middle Warping under the sun and the scrutiny of others Tired Collapsing under the weight of the wave function Subatomic particles currently in a state of nonexistence Abandoned altogether by the Higgs, thoughts vibrate and dissipate In extraordinary frequency and noise Drowned out by the audible hum of the big bang Tired As if running a marathon in treacle Start with a whimper then dribble to a halt Running barefoot on salt flats Or over pillows in stilettos More time spent on face than feet Tired Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more The court jester prances for the Big Queen ***** And her merry King of Fools with his band of merry drunkards Quickly losing the point of it all As words start tumbling down in random order Staccato signal messages like binary or Morse code Information overload threatens to upend the boatload Like the military dumping refugees into the harbour Buckle up armour and wait for the onslaught Of somnatic visions, twisted psychedelic impressions Land mine concussions in the fevered dreams of veterans Who witnessed limb torn from limb In the name of something nobody remembers Lose their tempers and start a war on home turf Jungles petrified into concrete monstrosities that blot out the sun From the flowers that feed in the cracks of the pavement Everywhere bereavement and none shall take leave From the cold, impassive logic of Death Who comes knocking as you read this Wired No chance of sleep now This is why one shouldn’t write poetry late at night