can't: a poem on waking
Can't: A Poem On Waking
Can't
get out of bed today,
and I thought I'd lift my hands to say:
Consumed by dispassionate
early-twenties malaise;
the weight of the world
pinning me to my sheets,
head too full to lift,
a little less Sixteen Candles,
a little more
"is this it?".
My bed be the sea and I,
I will there float,
stocked with naught but tea and bananas
on my mattress sailboat.
For, if it's me and me against the world
I want to call forfeit,
forget my cues, fumble my line;
forget getting up on the wrong side in the morning -
it's just that there isn't a right side, this time.
As if
I awoke in a breathless palace
bordered by thorns,
where dust bestows on
the sleepy court a lifeless pallor,
a misremembered testament
to a day stillborn;
as if in pillow-country the borders have been closed
and I dare not flee
with my dreams trailing from my dream-shoes
like so much toilet paper
behind me.
Can't
fathom the depths
of a pitiless planet
from this prone position,
don't want to rise
to the uncertain glory of a condition
that tries to make me wise through pain
so that I might tumble down,
loaded with knowledge,
only to stagger up
and offer my heart again.
No,
while you were sleeping
I weighted the scale;
on the one hand, joy,
in the other the patchwork tale
of my life like
so many scraps stitched
by, among others, disappointment -
Life's just a cut-and-paste artist
with some wicked scissors,
that's why they call her a bitch;
she maketh wounds
for which there is no ointment -
and in that creaking balance I
could find no peace,
no deep-rooted stillness
under which I could lay my head,
so if it's all the same to you, sir,
I think today I'll stay in bed.
Can't
get out of bed today,
and I thought I'd lift my hands to say:
Consumed by dispassionate
early-twenties malaise;
the weight of the world
pinning me to my sheets,
head too full to lift,
a little less Sixteen Candles,
a little more
"is this it?".
My bed be the sea and I,
I will there float,
stocked with naught but tea and bananas
on my mattress sailboat.
For, if it's me and me against the world
I want to call forfeit,
forget my cues, fumble my line;
forget getting up on the wrong side in the morning -
it's just that there isn't a right side, this time.
As if
I awoke in a breathless palace
bordered by thorns,
where dust bestows on
the sleepy court a lifeless pallor,
a misremembered testament
to a day stillborn;
as if in pillow-country the borders have been closed
and I dare not flee
with my dreams trailing from my dream-shoes
like so much toilet paper
behind me.
Can't
fathom the depths
of a pitiless planet
from this prone position,
don't want to rise
to the uncertain glory of a condition
that tries to make me wise through pain
so that I might tumble down,
loaded with knowledge,
only to stagger up
and offer my heart again.
No,
while you were sleeping
I weighted the scale;
on the one hand, joy,
in the other the patchwork tale
of my life like
so many scraps stitched
by, among others, disappointment -
Life's just a cut-and-paste artist
with some wicked scissors,
that's why they call her a bitch;
she maketh wounds
for which there is no ointment -
and in that creaking balance I
could find no peace,
no deep-rooted stillness
under which I could lay my head,
so if it's all the same to you, sir,
I think today I'll stay in bed.