Sanity sifting, lunar shifting
Sleep coming in tides
Waves of anger follow sudden
Droughts of energy… and hope
Each night exhausting
Howling at the moon and stars
For a few precious hours of peace
The body feels paralyzed
But the mind it runs, lost and afraid
In the dark in circles
Preyed on by shadows
Praying for the coming sunrise
That will bring only disdain
The roar of the city, stampede of trains
Scavengers and predators in packs
The laughter, the screaming
The phantoms in the dark
A dream might make it better
Or burn it for nightmare fuel
The darkness within
Never covers the eyes
Only makes the night more sinister
Surrounding, relentless
All part of the punishment
All in on the joke
The hunters become the victims
The weak cower and the strong…
They watch silently in horror
They, they’re coming…
Too tired to face them
Just roll over and lie still
The aching bones, the guilty heart
A mind of questions, an empty stomach
No morning, no answers
A lonely bed, filled with lumpy pillows
Jagged springs, stuffy blankets
Legs knotted and tangled
Breath heavy, eyes hurting

.
A rose from a window
looks like any other rose,
but as the old lady stares
out through the thin glass
a fondness develops,
begins to form a memory,

reaching back,
grasping the past,

that very slowly forms
the image of a rose,
proud in an old garden,
upstanding to catch the eye
of a young girl
staring out of a window.


© Pagan Paul (19/06/19)

The sky is
A graveyard of stars

And I remark
Something so tragically beautiful

Just like fireworks of art
From here to the nearest star

And I wish
I could lay awake
In the night

With you
And our lingering hearts

And tell you all about a tragedy
Called life