The retrial started after
I’d taken a sleeping pill
when my son decided he wanted in
the same bed
after a frightening movie
of time travelling extraterrestrials
physically present on earth,
not frightening, in the horror movie
way, but deep, intellectually
complex, and because I had to work
early I took the tablet, and then
the mother said, as I was climbing
between them, ‘Why did you bother
if you’re not going to be alive
in your sleep?, no cuddles for me!’
So using that for my excuse because
I had a new artwork I’d finished
in the afternoon which I wanted to view
under electric light, I drove home,
not far that I would fall asleep
on the way, and when I got home
I stood looking and wondering how
a man with no art training
or even any early inclination
could produce and sell so many
painted surface artworks?,
and because the pill had started
working and it was like when I used
to drink and drug I thought I would stay
awake for as long as I could,
and I took down from the shelf a writer
I used to read when I wrote drinking
and read poetry drunk. I know Regret
is a lame horse, and I don’t know if
it was because the movie we watched
spoke about Language in relation to Time
and Thought as the conditioning agents
for being free or being caught— but even
though I’d removed the saddle
and stirrups and the reins
and had lead Regret, limping
to a small piece of lawn behind the shed
by the tyre swing, where the wood to
be made into kindling was stored
which were the kisses I didn’t take,
and the days I didn’t show up, the mistakes
Bravado allows, and expects; with the gun
in my hands, the knowledge
of Time, Emotion, the symbolism
of Memory, I still was unable
to pull the trigger…
appreciate the feed-back, men.
Love the stream-of-consciousness of it all, Dean, and that incessant rhythm!
Ditto
great narrative, Dean. love the way the poetry gradually creeps in