grind

‘Oh the mind, mind has mountains.’ Gerard Manley Hopkins

 

Death ends but not every day dies with sleep.

Engines grind down at the darkened cross roads –

passengers tilt forward, cargoes shift –

then – headlights sweeping the room’s bare walls,

slashing the night – accelerate out of reach:

goods secured, people insouciant.

 

In the silence, in the empty stillness

that follows, I am awake, restless, waiting

then nightmared. I cannot control, resist –

whatever they are – ordinary thoughts,

admonishing angels, sheer demons. They

scale me, plunge me… Next day, all day, I feel

I have been in madness.