Hours at Night

The hour is midnight, the clock stands still.
Parched mouth and ridged tongue of paper
For sleeping in the dark insanity.
The hot night is young yet starless.
Beads of sweat burn the corners of my eyes.
Everything is set against my sleep.
Shall we retrieve these faint hours,
This calm, uneventful day, this pause
From habitual strife, from constant arguing?
Shall the hours rewind through this cool,
Shaded day with its soft breeze,
Its apricot pudding, its quiet chat by the pool?
Shall we retrieve these instants together
Or just fall back in our sombre, destructive fits?
The clock stands still
it is not past midnight.
Thirsty and haggard and impaired;
I am dying for fresh air, for a fresh
Soft breeze that brings me peace of mind,
Quietness of thought, stillness of hatred.
Decided but sensible, placid unmovement of the hands.
This night is just one night, one sleepless lull.
Nightbreak with its barking dog, its clear sounds,
Its trains booming indifferently past us,
Its black dome knitted into a question mark
Yet the skies are lightless, yet midnight is still
Almost. The coat of clouds rent here and there
Shows tongues of spangling stars, of sombrer sky.
The embalmer should have worked thoroughly
And hid from us all beauty and hope.

The hands still quietly folded and necessary
Shall not for the untime being let
The old ghosts out, the shrieking wraiths haunting
The graveyard of my memory.

For one moment gasping and clawing the air,
Panting for dear life for the lost breath,
I look to the East knowing there’s no promise
But blind hope in the decidedness
Of what my hands can or cannot, achieve.
The streetlamps at my feet, vain, idle,
Scattered, earth-bound, near star-like lights
Disperse for now the darkness downstairs.
But this is not sufficient to go hence.
I understand I have been waiting for that motion
Of the clock suspended in mid-time
Shivering and afraid to carry on,
Safely retreated in a past I know
And grew accustomed to. The hands will tell.
Shall inertia settle this crux one way
– The solid, scientific, usual one – or the other?
Huddled together through immobility,
Through the scathed oppugnant sensation
Of passingness, we mooch our lank shadows
Upon the turbid tarn of time. Existence
Seems less dull when we cooperate.
Unless we cooperate.
Shall these hands
Throttle us to death when we already are
Breathless in these stifling hours of darkness?
We wait for the answer the hands shall tell.
The hands that furrow through space thanks to us labourers.

Looking out from the high window I know
The hours will tell, marking no difference
For me but for the faintest ticking which means
More than a second gone and another coming,
Which means more than simply beholding
The innumerable consequences of time,
The end looming suddenly into view.
It means Truth quenching a questioning brow,
A worried hand working both good and bad
As if they were the two parts of the same talisman;
It means Truth pointing to the useful hour
To find peace in the hot, unbreathable air.

R.B. 06/07.VII.2006 Tours