Take up the insomniac’s burden
So sleepless and yet not tired,
Look not up to your bed.
For there is nothing more we desire.
We live in simple contradiction,
At day, the city hums it’s lullabies
But here we are. Awake,
Forced to endure those sleeper’s sullen cries.

Take up the insomniac’s burden
To never feel again,
The patience in that persons eye
And you thought there’d never be an end.
They wonder why we don’t sleep
You see..us insomniacs are all the same
In some way there’s no getting over
The hurricane after the rain.

Take up the insomniac’s burden
A war of raging peace
Still awake, our soft hearts breathe irregularly.
It’s frustrating. To say the least.
To know that you won’t be the same
At least not anytime soon
To know that person’s gone forever
And all she left for me? The moon.

Take up the insomniac’s burden
We live just night by night
Some of us..nothing but ****** romantics
We’re just attack dogs without their bites.
We sit and over think our plans
Plotting on how to set them in motion.
So go tell the city’s lovers we’re on our way
To assassinate. Their emotion.

an insomniac's pleasure,
a dying man's wish
to hear the voice of her,
the one thing they both miss;

whether love left quiet,
or love once lost
they'd do anything to hear it,
no matter the cost

while her voice would bring the dying man peace,
i doubt it would bring the insomniac sleep
she is but one of the dying man's wishes,
while she is what the insomniac misses;

so while the dying man dies,
and while the insomniac lies awake
one heart stops;
and another heart breaks.

Rest easy, read these heavy words of slumber,
tap your chest to the beat of your heart,
empty out breath even from the deepest parts
the void, will fill itself, with sleep, I hope for your sake.

Scrunch those toes to close, then let them relax and let go,
Half close those toes and let them loose, shake them once and again,
Tense those calves, feet pointed at the ceiling, if you are willing,
Go half way and shake the tension away, from you,
Quads and hamstrings, next remember in pretext, full and halfway,
shake the tension away,,
gluteus maximus
then abdominals
and lower back
and in their turn
chest, those pecs to reflex and relax
latissimus dorsi, my oh my you got your back
shoulders,
hands of fingers, just like the toes,
pretty soon you might doze,
forearms, biceps and triceps too,
neck and face shrug and scrunch,
you don't have the answer,
so pucker your face,
eyes are the last close them once,
eyes are the last close them half,
eyes are the last,

I hope you never read this far,
unless you are awake, after a
night of rest fullness, so if it does
not work, know this, I will sit by
your side so you can unwind,
I have a good year for listening,
on pillow soft words, for you to put
your sleepy heavy head.


Good...night...yawn

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole --
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.

He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue --
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.

His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

Tick. Tock. Quarter to two.
Tick. Tock. I thought of you.
Tick Tock. Quarter to three.
Tick Tock. Do you think of me?

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac.

1 year 1 day and a half
How long since we last laughed.
1 month 1 day and a quart
I gave back the ring you bought.
1 week 1 day and an eighth
The last time I saw your face.

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac.

Too late to say I'm sorry.
Too late to take it back.
Too late to be together.
Too late to mend the cracks.

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac

I hope that you are happy.
I hope that she is too.
I hope you know I'm sorry.
I hope that she loves you.

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac

I regret it everyday.
It really wasn't worth it.
You were everything I wanted.
And I threw it all away...

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac

1 year 1 day and a half.
Too late to say I'm sorry.
I hope that you are happy.
I regret it everyday.

Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock.Tick.Tock. Insomniac

It's been 5 months
Recovering from 2 years
Of gentle giggles and heart felt hugs
2 am conversations and 3 am tired kisses
5 am would bring brightening skies and quiet goodnights
You always were a night-owl

I remember running through the forest
Staring out at our special spot
Listening to the water trickle down the creek
And something about the sparks in your eyes
Really made the place disappear
Even surrounded by all this magnificent nature
I was still lost in your beauty

I remember telling you my dreams
The adventurous journey across the Milky Way
When it rained clocks and time stopped
And that really stupid one about the tricycle in the skate park
You would always listen and tell me yours
But the real dream was seeing you when I woke up

I remember many special things with you
You were my first girlfriend
My stunning homecoming date
The first person to make me cry out of happiness
You were my best friend
I will never forget that

I remember a bitter-sweet memory of us too.
The room was quiet
I only heard the scratching from your pet mice.
The street lamp crawled through the blinds
And a warm hand touched my red, flooded, cheek
And our lips met
My first kiss, Your first kiss
Complete.

It's been 5 months
Recovering from 2 years
Of gentle giggles and heart felt hugs
2 am conversations and 3 am tired kisses
5am only brings my tear filled eyes nowadays
*I've always been an insomniac

There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.

insomniac

tangible darkness
let me take a picture of you

paint you on the wall
scribble your name on waters

in your naked form
bend you, so no one else

knows you but me, alone

insomniac darkness — tell me
my muse, let me taste you,

bewildering, like arrows in disarray
and white birds

surreal as falling seraphs and forked tongues

moist darkness
what is sulking inside you must submerge

with manta rays hemmed in circles long ago
curled horns probing, testing bygones,

frozen dawn condensing my azure dreams ashore

I am an insomniac by association.
I associate with sleepless nights and mindsets that are too wobbly and shaky to be anything less than a tornado.
I want to rename my veins after hurricanes.
This one's Sandy because it washed away the girl I loved in New Jersey.
Because the ocean is never as salty as my cheeks after I kiss her through the miles.
Because I am not a boy, because my mother thinks I wear black because I used to slit my wrists.
Because of my tattoos that whisper of their memories while I lay in bed counting the stars I can't see.
So I start counting the stars I see in my head.
So I started taking drugs that made me see them instead.
I am an insomniac because I want to sleep but only when I remember the reasons why I can't.

What do you do at 3am when you're tired and bored and its raining?

Maybe this is punishment.
For eating those grapes before you paid for them in Sainsburys.
Or that time you forgot who Buzz Aldron was, or when you took pleasure at beating a five year old at Cluedo.
She started crying, and even then, you still
would not relinquish your title.
Maybe its for that time
You were accidentally racist  to the chinese guy taking your order.
Or when you forgot to buy your mum a birthday card, or when you made fun of your best friend for not being taller.
Or when you said, 'Maybe
selective breeding in humans,
Is not such a bad thing after all.'

Yes, Its definitely punishment for that.

But maybe its for all the litter you've dropped, inadvertently or on purpose.
Or for last week when you accidentally kicked the cat, or for stealing those library books,
For swearing at kids
and blaspheming at the dinner table,
Christ!
Maybe its for nicking your brothers chips, even when you're not really that hungry.
For halfhearted apologies handed out like office stationary, for scoffing at most modern art.
For not revising when you
Really, really should
...But telling your parents you are.

But even with all of this, isn't the punishment, just a little bit too harsh?

Well now you are sarcastic, and bitter and pessimistic at least 90% of the time.
And you do hide the fact that you quite like country music, and that you have a blanket with sleeves (and you genuinely use it) and that you're really rather patriotic at heart.
And you didn't say all that stuff when you should have.
And you said all that other stuff you didn't mean
And you spend far too much of your time
Invested in impressing the people you're never going to see again.

And you realize all of this... at three o'clock in the morning, alone but for the fading of the rain.

And you swear to yourself, with all the fervour of a tired insomniac. That tomorrow.
There. Will. Be. Change.
But in the cold, harsh light of nine o'clock the same day. Six hours after you fell asleep. You resign yourself to the fact that last nights punishments can all be absolved, by a nice warm cup of tea.
And despite what you say
at 3am when you're tired and bored,
listening to the sound of the rain.
You will always be a pessimistic idiot, with delusions of grandeur.
That watches too much American TV.

Forty Days

A Season of Grief, a Season of Rejoicing

November 9-December 20, 2014

For Barbara Beach Alter 
It is Christmas morning in Saco, Maine, where today Bett, Aaron, Emily, Thomasin and our beloved cousin Marie find ourselves gathered to celebrate our first Christmas without dadima (our name for Barbara Beach Alter).  Brother Tom writes that already in India he and Carol with Jamie, Meha and Cayden (the only of her seven greatgrandchildren Barry never held) have celebrated.  Today Marty and Lincoln join us in Maine.

This gathering of documents—notes, drafts of memorial services, poems, homilies—is my christmas present to each of you.  It is a record, certainly subjective, of grief and rejoicing.

John Copley Alter
1:14 a.m.
Saco, Maine 
November 9

Loved ones,
Barbara Beach Alter died peacefully at 2:55 Sunday morning (today).  Bett and I had the good fortune to be there for the final beating of her good strong heart.  She murmured charcoal.  The nurse who was bathing her afterwards noted how few wrinkles there were, and it is true.
For those of you nearby you may if you want visit Mom in her room at hospice this morning (until noon).  Visit? Darshan? Paying respects?
Bett and I plan to be there around 11:00.
Much love to all. A blessed occasion.
John

 
November 10

Matthew 5:13-19
Jesus said, "You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot.
"You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.
"Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."

yesterday in the early hours my mother died her saltiness
restored all that had through the months of her old
age and convalescence obscured the lens of her life cleaned
away so that for us now more and more clearly
as we hear about her through the memory and love
of so many people her good works shine forth in
their glory but it is to the days of her
convalescence the days of her dementia I would turn our
minds those of us who spent time with her at
Wingate long-term care facility remember that Barbara Beach Alter became
at times fierce in her commanding us that ‘not one
letter, not one stroke of a letter’ of the commandments
should be altered do you remember that those of you
and us who were given the work and gift of
spending time with Barry in those days in that condition

remember for instance how fussy she became about the sequence
of food on her tray how impatient with us for
our trespasses and violations how adamant that we look forward
for instance and not back at her how she would
say stop holding my hand and saying you love me
you have work to do o she was almost impossible
and certainly incoherent and demented in her obsession with law
and procedure fussy impatient imperious I do not forget being
scolded reamed out put in my place for having somehow
failed to do what the ‘law and the prophets’ demand

Barbara beach alter in the days before hospice in the
nursing home and hospital and even if we are honest
in the final years of her life found herself caught
up in the rigidity of her anxious desire to be
faithful to the laws and commandments of her life and
that made her at times extremely demanding to be with

amen and the epistemological confusion of course the clash between
her reality and ours it was all an ordeal for
her and for those of us who kept her company

and yet and yet through it all and now as
that ordeal for her is no longer paramount as she
dances in heaven all the wrinkles and discomfort of her
life removed and forgiven Barbara Beach Alter kept the faith
living in the midst such that those who cared for
her most intimately the strangers all professed your mother blessed
us


Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.



So, brother and sister, here are my thoughts about the memorial service(s).
Let’s find a time when we three can be present; that’s the most important thing.  My life is currently the least constrained by agenda and schedule.  And then the grandchildren, recognizing that Jamie may not be able to come.  So, our work is to find our when our kids are able to come. Bett and I are exploring that with our three, each of whom has some constraint: Emily, the cost; Thomasin, the piebaking demands, Aaron school.  But we are flexible.

Much love.

John



Walking in my mother’s wake today some trees
a gentle breeze some dogs a little boy
the neighborhood and I took joy from interaction

we are at best a fraction in love’s
calculation after all heaven I realize is not
above or below cannot be taught comes naturally

as death does walking in my mother’s wake
I found new allies learned yet again not
to take myself too seriously to be caught

off guard as a matter of principle and
not to insist that I understand but live
in the midst of forgiveness


in my mother’s wake I am reading these books for
some way to continue to knock on her door Wendell
Berry he can tell me some things and William Blake
he can take me closer and I remember she described
me once as an unused Jewish liberal so I am
reading about protestant liberalism but ham that I am also
reading Carl Hiassen’s Bad Monkey and Quo Vadimus that my
daughter left behind and mythologically Reflections from yale divinity school
no fooling Denise Levertov David Sobel Galway Kinnell’s translation of
Rilke some wake
 
November 11

Matthew 25:1-13
Jesus said, "Then the kingdom of heaven will be like this. Ten bridesmaids took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. When the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them; but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, all of them became drowsy and slept. But at midnight there was a shout, 'Look! Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him.' Then all those bridesmaids got up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.' But the wise replied, 'No! there will not be enough for you and for us; you had better go to the dealers and buy some for yourselves.' And while they went to buy it, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went with him into the wedding banquet; and the door was shut. Later the other bridesmaids came also, saying, 'Lord, lord, open to us.' But he replied, 'Truly I tell you, I do not know you.' Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour."

this morning in the wee hours my mother died one
of the wise bridesmaids whose lamp to the end was
full she carried always the flask of oil that is
joy that is the love of the kingdom of heaven
and of the bridegroom a flask always replenished by prayer
by devotion by a humble courageous living in the midst

she expected every day the bridegroom to come in other
words and she was also one who would never refuse
to share even the last drop with somebody in need

and at the end it is so clear the door
into the banquet hall was not closed to her as
it is not closed to any one of us foolishness
is to believe otherwise to believe that the bridegroom will
not come today in the early morning in the wee
hours that is when he comes in the midst of
other plans is when he comes even when we are
doing what we assume to be good work when we
are doing what gives us pleasure our duty joy comes
then unsummoned unpredictable random even according to all our best
laid plans my mother loved so many things her pleasure
included dancing late in her life terminally unsteady she invented
what we loved to urge her to do namely the
sitting jig and we grew up with images of her
Isadora Duncan dancing with white scarves in an enchanted forest

Barbara Beach Alter aka Barry aka dadima bari nani aunt
and daughter wife missionary is now I know dancing a
rollicking boisterous jig on the shores of a lake that
is as her grandson once confided to her god in
liquid form spilly Beach of course also dyslexic executive function
compromised she was but one who loved to be always
in the midst surrounded by loved ones some of them
absolute strangers she shared her oil because for her it
came welling up from an inexhaustible source a deep eternal
well of such illumination and laughter such giddy divine chuckles

for her there was to be no exclusion she would
not find the awful idea of being one of the
foolish applicable to anybody but happily she welcomed into her
midst so many it is hard to imagine how many

so there she is now a bridesmaid dancing for joy
in such elegant clothing with such perpetual brightness

amen hallelujah rejoice


sometimes I think she pulled us all out of the
magic hat sometimes I think she knit us all into
one of her theologically impossible sweaters and then with a
wink she passes through the eye of the needle and
is gone and we are left to play in her
honor endless hands of solitaire sometimes I think we are
no more than the hermeneutics of her life the epistemology
artless she was not her heart like one of those
magical meals for her then a doxology praise then praise
she knows salvation

what is a life’s work it is like a landscape
dotted with oases and gardens for the thirsty and the
lost it is like scraping through dry barren ground and
finding there suddenly not only the theology of paradise but
such seeds your hands ache to begin the planting what
is a life’s work what has been shut for too
long opens what has been shut for too long opens

a life’s work renews itself then with death the kernel
of hope that dies in springtime sprouting is what a
life’s work becomes
 
November 12

John 21:15-17
When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my lambs." A second time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" He said to him, "Yes, Lord; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Tend my sheep." He said to him the third time, "Simon son of John, do you love me?" Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, "Do you love me?" And he said to him, "Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you." Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep.

I know my mother very much enjoyed having breakfast with
god and that the meals of her nursing home drove
her nearly crazy and that when at last she found
hospice o she again could imagine the feast of heaven
at which Jesus breaks bread with us and speaks with
such clarity do you love me more than these I
know it was questions as simple and overwhelming as this
that dominated her final days do you love me love
being  one of the last five words she attempted to
speak do you love me she wrestled in her last
months with epistemology and psychology and theology and all had
to do with whether she could answer unequivocally you know
that I love you and that she could say of
her life that she had broken bread with god we
all remember in her life those moments when there was
a great gladness an innocent acceptance of what lay immediately
in her presence now those months in the nursing home
tormented her in precisely this fashion that it was hard
to accept to be in the midst of such mediocrity
and woe to be innocent and accepting but now praise
god there she is a happy guest at the great
feast and we left behind bereft can acknowledge that she
loved god in her own fashion as best she possibly
could and do you remember being with her there in
hospital or nursing home and she commanding us to move
beyond holding her hand and saying we loved her and
to feed the sheep to do that work which will
make of this earth this here and now an outstation
of heaven Barbara Beach Alter loved god in her own
fashion as best she possibly could we remember that and
that memory is today like a great network a web
of love and inspiration o we would gladly one more
time hold her hand and say I love you but
we know also clearly I think today what the work
is to love our neighbor as ourselves to work for
peace and justice I think of my sister with her
colleagues in WEIGO and how her sisters have understood her
grief  let us break our fast together then glad for
the worldwide web that in these days is reading the
gospel of the life of Barbara Beach Alter praise god


feed
tend
feed
in exchange for his three denials Peter is given three imperative verbs
feed
tend
feed
this is the commission Jesus after breakfast on the shore of the sea of Galilee gives to Peter
twice he says feed
in the commonwealth of Massachusetts 700,000 people are hungry
1 in 6 americans are hungry
living in uncertainty about their daily bread
more than 18,000,000 in Africa
842,000,000 around the world go to bed hungry


Marty and Tom
The thinking about the memorial service is taking this slow and cautious turn, namely that we have three services (at least), one in Sudbury, one in New Haven (allowing Stan and Chuck and others to come) at First Presbyterian (with Blair Moffett we hope), and of course one in India.
The date frame appears to be somewhere between December 17 and 20, unless you have other thoughts.
The actual cremation happens tomorrow.  Lincoln, Bett, Alexis and I will attend, and then of course there is In the Midst on Friday.
Love you more than tongue can tell.
John


the thing with a life well lived is that many
people have partaken the way let’s say a river moves
down through any number of different lives all the time
sedulously seeking the shortest path to the sea to steal
a line from somebody or other meandering a watershed within
which so many of us find a way to live
our own lives nourished and for each of us the
river distinct and different white water the slow fertile meander
the delta and we say to each other this is
the composite river


sometimes I feel like a sleepwalker trying to run a
marathon sometimes I feel like a speedbump in a blizzard

an arrow in a wind tunnel sometimes I feel like

a hazard sign in an old age home sometimes I
feel like a tyrannosaurus rex trying to ride a tricycle

and sometimes those are the good days when identity is
strong like an icicle in a heat wave is strong

I try to read wisdom literature at happy hour scotch
and Solomon can’t go wrong I think and sometimes I

feel like crying
 
November 13

four days ago we were left alone there with your
body after your breathing ceased and the proud stubborn beating
of your heart and in those four days beloved mother
so much I would love to say to you and
share the antics of the squirrel late leaves on the
neighborhood trees music Orion the network the atlas of love
your life has left behind and all the words we
are the gospel of today and I would sit with
you there then in silence as I sit now four
days later vigilant insomniac aware that the kingdom of heaven
is not more complicated than singing than love than dancing

we are all dancing the dance lord siva teaches and
the s

I am the
Voluntary insomniac.

I suffer from no such misfortune.
Midnight to 3 is a blessing,
At night, I'm reality's surgeon.

Delving head-first into current events,
And philosophies of East and of West;
Jack Kerouac and Jean Paul-Sarte have me sweating;
And I look forward to Alan Watts next.

Lets discover it all!
How exciting it is,
I've been privileged as I am alive.

I read and I write,
Walk dark streets on some nights,
And on others, I lay and watch stars.

I am the
Voluntary insomniac.

On some nights I sit and sip tea,
Read Al-Jazeera's new headlines,
And depart upon intellects sea.

In the depth of the night
I become everything;
Every person, every move, every sound.

Every taste, every touch, every feeling, every thought,
I am the stars, the ocean, the ground.

In the present I become the future and past
And explore the great misunderstood;
Everything becomes clear as my boat starts to steer,
And my feet waver from where they once stood.

And on every sweet night, it doesn't matter how far
My ship crossed infinity's sea,
I am lost on open water forever;
I adventure eternally.

This is not my tradition,
The words I speak no longer mean,
The things I say,
I feel the fire of the engines,
The sudden force upward and downward all at once,
This feeling could tear a man apart,
The atmosphere lies before me one second,
Yet behind me another,
My body is on it's way to find my mind,
But something stronger stops it,
A brilliant light,
A star,
A sun,
A heart,
The universal heart pulls me towards,
As I find myself gravitating towards,
The heart takes over,
My mind echoes through space,
I hear the cries,
But it is to late,
I am a habitual insomniac by instinct,
I lose myself,
Lost a drift,
Days,
Weeks,
Months,
Years,
The poetic comatose has taken my life and soul,
I awaken,
To see not a second has passed,
To see the end,
To see the crash,
The final good-bye,
The doom of a habitual Insomniac

Insomniac, unresting mind.
Lost in loops. No meaning, time.

Craving peace, but finding pain.
Nothing left lost, yet nothing to gain.

Under the magic of the midnight sky,
A child of the moon, under heaven's
watchful eye.

Listen closely and you can hear their dreams.
Prayers yet answerd, wishes yet seen.

For they shine like the dying star,
a million miles away.

Yet seen in moments,
reminder of day.

Close your eyes and wish.
but you shall never dream.

For thee insomniac suffers
through what can never be seen.

A rose in the high garden that you desire.
A wheel in the pure syntax of steel.
The mountain stripped of impressionist mist.
Greys looking out from the last balustrades.

Modern painters in their black studios,
Sever the square root's sterilized flower.
In the Seine's flood an iceberg of marble
freezes the windows and scatters the ivy.

Man treads the paved streets firmly.
Crystals hide from reflections' magic.
Government has closed the perfume shops.
The machine beats out its binary rhythm.

An absence of forests, screens and brows
Wanders the roof-tiles of ancient houses.
The air polishes its prism on the sea
and the horizon looms like a vast aqueduct.

Marines ignorant of wine and half-light,
decapitate sirens on seas of lead.
Night, black statue of prudence, holds
the moon's round mirror in her hand.

A desire for form and limit conquers us.
Here comes the man who sees with a yellow ruler.
Venus is a white still life
and the butterfly collectors flee.

Cadaqués, the fulcrum of water and hill,
lifts flights of steps and hides seashells.
Wooden flutes pacify the air.
An old god of the woods gives children fruit.

Her fishermen slumber, dreamless, on sand.
On the deep, a rose serves as their compass.
The ****** horizon of wounded hankerchiefs,
unties the vast crystals of fish and moon.

A hard diadem of white brigantines
wreathes bitter brows and hair of sand.
The sirens convince, but fail to beguile,
and appear if we show a glass of fresh water.

Oh Salvador Dalí, of the olive voice!
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush
or your pigments that circle those of your age,
I salute your yearning for bounded eternity.

Healthy soul, you live on fresh marble.
You flee the dark wood of improbable forms.
Your fantasy reaches as far as your hands,
and you savor the sea's sonnet at your window.

The world holds dull half-light and disorder,
in the foreground humanity frequents.
But now the stars, concealing landscapes,
mark out the perfect scheme of their courses.

The flow of time forms pools, gains order,
in the measured forms of age upon age.
And conquered Death, trembling, takes refuge
in the straightended circle of the present moment.

Taking your palette, its wing holds a bullet-hole,
you summon the light that revives the olive-tree.
Broad light of Minverva, builder of scaffolding,
with no room for dream and its inexact flower.

You summon the light that rests on the brow,
not reaching the mouth or the heart of man.
Light feared by the trailing vines of Bacchus,
and the blind force driving the falling water.

You do well to place warning flags
on the dark frontier that shines with night.
As a painter you don't wish your forms softened
by the shifting cotton of unforeseen  clouds.

The fish in its bowl and the bird in its cage.
You refuse to invent them in sea or in air.
You stylize or copy once you have seen,
with your honest eyes, their smal agile bodies.

You love a matter defined and exact,
where the lichen cannot set up its camp.
You love architecture built on the absent,
admitting the banner merely in jest.

The steel compass speaks its short flexible verse.
Now unknown islands deny the sphere.
The straight line speaks of its upward fight
and learned crystals sing their geometry.

Yet the rose too in the garden where you live.
Ever the rose, ever, our north and south!
Calm, intense like an eyeless staute,
blind to the underground struggle it causes.

Pure rose that frees from artifice, sketches,
and opens for us the slight wings of a smile
(Pinned butterfly that muses in flight.)
Rose of pure balance not seeking pain.
Ever the rose!

Oh Salvador Dalí of the olive voice!
I speak of what you and your paintings tell me.
I don't praise your imperfect adolescent brush,
but I sing the firm aim of your arrows.

I sing your sweet battle of Catalan lights,
you love of what might be explained.
I sing your heart astronomical, tender,
a deck of French cards, and never wounded.

I sing longing for statues, sought without rest,
your fear of emotions that wait in the street.
I sing the tiny sea-siren who sings to you
riding a bicycle of corals and conches.

But above all I sing a shared thought
that joins us in the dark and the golden hours.
It is not Art, this light that blinds our eyes.
Rather it is love, friendship, the clashing of swords.

Rather than the picture you patiently trace,
it's the breast of Theresa, she of insomniac skin,
the tight curls of Mathilde the ungrateful,
our friendship a board-game brightly painted.

May the tracks of fingers in blood on gld
stripe the heart of eternal Catalonia.
May stars like fists without falcons shine on you,
while your art and your life burst into flower.

Don't watch the water-clock with membranous wings,
nor the harsh scythe of the allegories.
Forever clothe and bare your brush in the air
before the sea peopled with boats and sailors.

Night approached us, with a full moon.
I began to cry, and you to laugh.
Your contempt was a god, and my whinings,
a chain of doves and minutes.

Night left us. Crystal of pain
you wept for distant depths.
My sadness was a cluster of agonies,
over your fragile heart of sand.

Morning joined us on the bed,
our mouths placed over the frozen jet
of a blood, without end, that was shed.

And the sun shone through the closed balcony,
and the coral of life opened its branch,
over my shrouded heart.

i want to live in a city
          where street lights are a constant
     sound echos when people sleep
                   but for all the unfortunate souls
the insomniacs
            they're up and moving
     brains ticking over
                                           but it's not so bad
         there's the echo of the city
                 and the constant light
                                           maybe there are others
                    i'm not alone in
     insomniac city

                                            i am in the country
                       the crickets sleep
                                  clouds cover the moon
                                             it's too dark and quiet
                           my mind ticks over more
              i wish
              i lived in
              insomniac city

He wears his solivagant demeanor like armor; your battle of love will never scratch his silver plated chest, your swords will never pierce the walls inside his ribcage called, "home" Home is where the heart is and he flatlined a long time ago; broken heart syndrome only has only 11 documented cases of death, but something snapped inside that boy that day and I think about how they never mention that you can die on the inside, too.
He says cigarettes are a way to manipulate time, that sand is just sand if you don't know how much you have left in your hourglass, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
You could've called us time travelers, we were making best friends with the moon and the stars as we breathed in the promise of calm, an ashen beach lay beneath us. Sand is just sand, after all.
The confessions of an insomniac, the stream of unfiltered emotion laying open, so vulnerable- how terribly sad it looks in the light.

Waves torment the sand,

pulling back, always running

empty shore, naked

In the brash brassy light you stand,
shaky, on two feet
like a lethargic elephant

swaying---always swaying
and the light keeps blazing
and your head keeps spinning

You are beyond the point of exhaustion
there is nothing left
no trace of the self that was

If it is time to sleep
Sleep will not come
She is mad at you

you have refused her
for too long- an accident,
really- but normally

she welcomes you back
normally she is happy to
see you, and you float into her arms

not this time

so you keep swaying under that light
until crawling into bed
and the waiting begins

-------------------------------------

While the world sleeps
you turn and turn
worn from the hours
of thinking about anything
but sleep
the comforter brings no comfort
the pillow does not ease the strain
of your neck, the weight of
your head or
of that racing mind

the worst part about being awake
in the middle of the night
is that there is time
to think about all the thoughts
you pushed away before-
they creep up
and turn into waking nightmares
beastly what-ifs and why-didn’t-I’s

the insomniac is most insecure
with nothing to do

during the day you may
busy your tired body with tasks
ignoring the ache of the eyelids,
the pounding of the head

but at night you cannot
make yourself move
a house is sleeping
the world is sleeping
and you have to pretend
that you are as well

so you stare up at the ceiling
(you have memorized the cracks)
or you count and count sheep
(you have reached 100 and back)
and it’s all so pointless
don’t you see?

The Insomniac is fighting a battle
that never ends

a battle that makes you weaker everyday

how long till your body gives out
and will not fight
anymore?

I, sleeping like an insomniac,
fell from the arms of a night
that didn't want me, and into
a day of repetitive flaws,
all of my previous mistakes unnoticed;

I had set a fire in my mind,
the likes of which started
by the sparks in my eyes
thrown up from a gale of ashes
of cremated memories and
fostered dreams nurtured from
a thousand nightmares

And so tired was I that I
barely noticed when I caught fire.

“You know the worst thing I ever saw?” He asked.

I sighed to myself, took another gulp of beer and fixed him with a look of half-interest. He was drunk. A complete ****-up and a bore when he's drunk. I don't know why I drink with him. That said, he probably thinks the same.

“What's that?”
“Bedsheets over the benches in the church yard.”
“Ye-what?”
“Bedsheets over the benches in the church yard. For the homeless.”
“The homeless. Right.”
“I'll get us another drink.” he says, “then I'll start where I left off.”
“Oh, good.”

He comes back with two bottles. We drink and we start talking about football. We're just about getting by before he raises his palm to his face.
“Aw, ****. I forgot, yeah. The worst thing I ever saw. I never told you.”
“You did. Bedsheets over the benches in the church yard. For the homeless.”
“Yeah yeah, but that doesn't really say much, does it? You're probably wondering to yourself why that would **** me off so much?”

Not really. He's the type of no-action, all-caring, bleeding heart that sits on his fattening **** every day, 'liking' rhetorical captions over pictures, and signing petitions to axe some ***** politician or other.
“I guess. Shoot.”

He shoots.
“I wanna burn down the churches. Seriously. Stupid ******* religious folk. I bet they go home and post pictures up of themselves, all busy in the soup kitchen, ladling minestrone into some poor *******'s styrofoam bowl.
“They'll never touch them. Always at arm's length. You don't wanna breathe in the pathogens of the anti-people...”
He slurred a little, went to carry on, but took another gulp of beer instead.
“What does that have to do with bedsheets over the benches in the church yard?” I took a gulp myself, this time watching him with a little more interest. Probably just because he looks like he could spew at any moment.
“You're not letting me finish...”
He finishes his beer, gets up, almost bumping into his piano-***-keyboard. He's off to the fridge again. I have a look around while he's out of the room. I can hear him ******* in the kitchen sink.

I've seen the place a million times before but it always has a whole bunch of new **** tacked up on the wall or else bundled in the corner. He's no hoarder, just gets bored and throws out all the stuff he bought the year before.
There's a framed picture of himself on the wall, cradling his Fender as if he's a master of the arts. It's signed, too.
I've seen him play. Probably will tonight. Wouldn't be surprised if he's written a protest song called: bedsheets over the benches in the church yard. The old **** can't even hit an F major with regularity.
He'd decided to put up his vinyl sleeves on the wall like a 17 year old would with an array of **** pop-punk band posters.
Blink and you might think he's the new John Peel or Phil Spector. Stare, and you'll realise he's twice as crazy, yet half as talented and half as interesting to listen to.
His room is like a CV to show to interesting, young indie women. Shame he's hitting forty now,and hasn't been to a club in about 3 months.
Last time we went he just sulked in the corner and got too drunk. He cried in the smoking area about his job before going round and asking attractive girls whether they think he's too old to be out. Most didn't even bother to give an answer. Probably best.

He comes back in with more beer.
“A-anyway...” He says, groaning a little like an old man as he settles back into the chair. “As I was saying...” he sloshes beer on the carpet, rubs it in with the heel of his shoe. He spits on the mark and then rubs again.
“What I was saying was that the church would be a whole lot more useful to the homeless if it was burned down. A condemned building is a whole lot more useful than being looked down on by holier-than-thou, middle-class, white Christians.
“They go home after an hour, bolt the church doors, and then watch TV in their brand new conservatories that they spend several thousands on. Just give the losers a place to shoot up and sleep in safety. That makes sense, right?”
“I guess so.”
I couldn't think of a change of conversation. So I just drank some more and pulled out a cigarette. It's nice to smoke inside for a change.

“It's a ****** ******* awful thing. If people were actually religious, they'd throw open their ******* doors for everyone. It's what Jesus would do, right?”
“Right.”
“He'd have all the **** in his bedsit, piled in like sardines, spreading TB like wildfire.”
“And that's a good thing?”
“Well, it can't be any worse, right? Sleep's important. I learned that the hard way.”

He didn't learn it the hard way. Not really. He's a self-motivated, self-harming insomniac. He spent his teenage years listening to bad music and staying up too late ******* over his French teacher. I should know, I mostly did the same.
He hit the **** pretty hard during college. Never really looked back until recently. ****** him up worse than you'd reckon. He couldn't sleep without the stuff. Man, if you'd have seen the poor guy whenever he couldn't get hold of some for the night. Eesh.

“...you know what I mean though? I'm sick of charity. Those fun-runs you get. A load of women in pink pretending that they care about breast cancer, before posting a million and one pictures up of them in ankle warmers and a kooky hat...”
“**** of the Earth.”
“Yup. Right up there with the women who have 'mummy' as their middle name on Facebook.”
“Yeah.”
“Honestly though, it's the laziest form of charity. Throwing a couple old, mouldy bedsheets out on some bird-**** bench made of wood and ancient farts...”
“It is pretty lazy.” I drank some more.

It was getting late. We swallowed three temazepams each, moved onto the cheap shiraz once we ran out of beer. We leant back in our chairs, barely talking and letting Tame Impala supply the conversation for us.

“You know what?” I ask, pretty much out of nowhere. His eyes have narrowed. He's not sleepy, just ****** on ***** and tranquillizers. He takes a moment.
“Huh?”
“From what you were saying earlier... you know, about the bedsheets over the benches in the church yard. For the homeless.”
“Yeah?”
“Well, why don't you?”
“Why don't I what?”
“Burn it down.”
“The church?”
“Well, you go on about being lazy and ****. Here's your chance. Help the homeless. Break the locks, pour the petrol, take out a few bottles of wine if you find any...”
“Now?”
“I guess so. Homeless folk are dying of pneumonia out there. Not a second can be wasted.”
“I dunno. I didn't mean I had to do it. I was just saying...”
“I guess they were just saying too.” I felt like I was being a ****, so I changed the subject to women I haven't laid.

I stumbled home leaning on my bicycle all the way. Daylight was just about visible off in the distance. I passed two homeless guys on the way back, gave one of them a fiver, the other one my big mac and the last of my cigarettes (well, leaving a couple for myself).
They said thanks, god bless you, etc, etc. I carried on walking.

I woke up the next afternoon with a mouthful of sand and in desperate need of a hangover ****. I hadn't shaved in about two weeks and there were dark circles under my eyes. I thought about going out to the diner for a full breakfast, but strange people were beyond me.
I ordered a pizza full of meat and grease and garlic sauce instead. I text him to see if he wanted to come over and nurse the hangover with a little ****. Watch a film. Get drunk again. He still smokes it on special occasions, and this ******* of a hangover was pretty **** special.
No reply, and I end up rolling up a joint for myself, smoking it by the window and watching the magpies peck around the grass. It's nice out.

The pizza guy comes. He's holding the pizza up like a map, calls out in a bored sort of voice: “Hello sir. I've got a large Palermo Pizza here, with a side of chicken strips and a can of Dandelion and Burdock?”
I say yes and he hands it over.

I tip him with the coins still left in my wallet from the night before, and he sheepishly says he picked up my post for me as well.
I look down at the pizza I'm holding, and there's a few envelopes that look suspiciously like bills, rival takeaway leaflets, and the local paper. I say thanks, give him the best sort of smile I could, and then close the door.
I turn on the TV. I forgot the England match was on. I turn over to something more interesting. There's nothing, so I switch back over. Before I open up the pizza, I take the paper. A small-town existence, nothing ever happens, but I could do with a new job.

The front page is on fire. A church has been burned down in the early morning. A forty-something man has been arrested and then taken to hospital for severe burns to the face. A load of children's art has been lost, along with countless Bibles, prayer cushions, and vaults of cash.
“****.”
I read through the article. The whole place was gutted. Nothing could be salvaged. Nothing could be redeemed. In the corner of the picture, through the red, green, and blue dots, I could just make out some bedsheets over the benches in the church yard. For the homeless.

I am Lex
And I am Alexandra.
I am not “baby” or “darling”.

I have more flies in my house than friends.

I am eighteen years old
But I feel as though the number should have an extra zero.

I am a student in more ways than one; of school, of the universe, of the stars in the night sky that I used to swear you hung all on your own for my eyes-
my gray-blue eyes with specks of yellow light around the pupils that make it look like I have always just been dancing in the street lights.

My pupils expand like black holes when my serotonin levels even out.

I am so short that I could pass as a pixie.
Five feet and one inch of metaphors that are so deeply rooted into my bones.
My ribcage knows truth like you placed it in my lungs for me to breathe in.

My hair is so indecisive, it changes colour biweekly.
I was born blonde.
My brother was born blue with a cord around his neck.

Every night before he goes to sleep he asks me to scratch his back.
I am older than he.
I feel that I am older than most.

I like old things.
If it’s not broken, don’t fix it.
I need someone with an old soul, I’m all Elvis and vinyl and Marilyn Monroe.
I could listen to Paul Simon’s “Live Rhymin’” on phonograph until I drop dead.

I wish it were winter all year long
But I don’t like being cold.

I collect tattoos like fireflies in mason jars.

I’m on pills that are supposed to make me happy.
I don’t think I’ve been happy since 2009
and I miss Her every day.

I’m more scared of life than death
but I no longer want to embrace dying.
Sometimes you forget to breathe just for a second, and then you realize
what you would be missing.

I think my depression is sort of like that.
It’s like being a bird and you’re the only one that can’t fly.

Nonetheless, I wish for stillness.
For peace, for fun in flatlines.
I wish for summer days by the lake
and no cell phone service.

I yearn for California.

I love reading so much that if I got paid for it,
I’d be a billionaire by now.
If you look into my eyes you could probably see traces of Sylvia Plath.

I wonder sometimes why she stuck her head in that oven.

I like vegetarian sushi, so basically just vegetables.
I was a vegetarian for a long while but then I decided that I wanted a hot dog.
I still regret that sometimes.

I’m afraid of frogs but nothing else.
I like to watch scary movies with the lights off.
I love to sleep, but I’m an insomniac.
And most of the time Melatonin doesn’t even knock me out.

I don’t believe in God but I believe in ghosts.
I don’t believe in hell but for Her sake, I hope there’s a heaven.
I believe in science but the class makes me want to rip my eyes out.
Except if it’s astronomy.

My parents usually depress me.

I believe purely in art.
Give me art or give me death.

I want to be a poet.
I want a living poet society.
My name is Lex
And this is 2013.

The pink floss and brunette eyes,
Wild smile and lavender goodbyes,
Has embraced the stains of heartbreak,
Has surrendered to the night skies.
The silly little heart tried,
To mend its way to a good night,
While the city laughed and smiled,
While for mad insomniac Elizabeth,
She cried, she cried.