I’d been too busy so much of the time,
that the requiem between one and another sunrise
seemed to be far too full of birdsong.
(a love song to the insomniacs of the world,
awake a million times over,
and a million times again for the sleepless
and the sick, world-weary passengers closing,
briefly, their tired eyes against the window of the Earth.)

Let’s say that the whole world is asleep
all at once. Seven and a half billion exhales,
seven and a half billion crumpled duvets
and grasping dream-hands, landing soft blows
against the mattress. What are they dreaming of?
Let’s say that they’re all dreaming of the same thing -
of the apocalypse, a kaleidoscope of little deaths
stretched out across the expanse of a dream.

Time, in dreams, is elongated; stretched out
like the pull of thick cornflour. A person —
any person, can live a thousand lives
in the space just above the nose,
where the eyes don’t meet and the dream wrinkles
the creases of age on the brow. Upon waking,
everyone will be a little bit older, and the great, catastrophic,
unreal World-Ender will fall asleep, a little out of time
with everyone else. The clocks strike into action
again. Just like in the dreams of a thousand lives,
except this time, my feet hit the ground.

The paper
           Mills chuffed pillowy
      Vapours, and rusted freight trains
   Howled mournfully on that imperfect
          Day when pelicans stole by
              Over cornflour
                Creaky sands.

                   I was wrong
               About the Pepsi
       Can and concrete jetty jutting
   Out because sea-oats grew, Oyster-
       Catchers made arches of song
            Above the sea-foam
                    Enraptured.

                    The­ perfect
              And the imperfect
        Elide; they leap-frog along;
    Firestorms regenerate, hurricanes
   Tow tranquilities, and truths
           There in the moment
                    Living lie.

                  In swamp pools
                 Alligators lie by
             Mosquitoes’ electric
    Whine. In the sodden heat sand gnats
       Settle on scalps, but not one
              Leaf goes amiss; here
                     All is one.

                   Whip-poor-wills
                 Call; cicadas whirr
           Through the wordless night.
   Shadows flicker as fire tongues quiver,
          And despite all faults innate,
             Imagined, real, dreamt,
                     Lies peace still.

                     And the night,
                Beautifully wrecked
          In giant live-oak boughs, hangs
   In shreds of Spanish Moss. Wire-grass burns.
                   Stars in their orbit
                      Stare amazed.