Good to Go

If you go to bed at 8.30

and spring awake

at 4.30 in the morning

with two poems

slogging it out

in yr head,

you’re good to go

you’ve had your 8 hours

What’s Coming Down the Pike

You don’t know what’s coming down the pike.

No one does.

Covid-19 showed that.

Now there are rumours of something else.

It doesn’t have a face or name

but the word ‘China’ is often invoked.

But no one knows.

But something is coming.

You can see its shadow.

Hear its footsteps.

Feel it breathing down yr neck.

And I feel like the poet Mark Strand

who always saw something coming down the pike

which is why he always slept, he says,

with one eye open.

Bed of Nails

Does my comfort discomfort you?

What would you have me do?

Lie on a bed of nails?

Put tacks in my shoes?

 

Quite early in life I was labelled a hedonist. I craved comfort the way some people craved adventure. It was my natural state. I mostly landed on my feet, things fell into place. This would annoy some people. I could see why but should I create a prickly existence for myself so others feel more at ease? I was feline. We had a cat who liked nothing better after a meal than to curl up on the lid of the rubbish bin and soak up the sun. I am like that though I prefer a mattress to the lid of a bin. But it does come with a cautionary tale:

 

Hedonist

 

Look at that little hedonist

Curled up on the bin

Better watch out the rubbish van

Doesn’t tip him in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Parable of the Breathing Tube

“You won’t even know it’s there,” said the surgeon.

“My brother-in-law sure did,” I replied referring to the incident in the ICU which I witnessed.

AS he was coming out of his sleep, he became aware of the tube down his throat and began struggling with it so violently that he had to be held down while he was put back to sleep. He stayed that way for three days.

“You won’t even be aware of it,” the surgeon said, “and if you are you won’t remember.”

I decided to go with that. In the end you have to put your faith in something.

Still, some days later as I was wheeled into the operating theatre, the last conscious thought was of that tube down my throat.

Many hours later as I slowly awoke, I remember the doctor saying, “the breathing tube is out now, you can speak.”

“What breathing tube?” I asked.

The thing is, if you don’t know something has happened to you, has it really happened?

 

* inspired by Billy Mac’s ‘A Daughter’s Love’ from his ‘Superman can’t find a phone booth’ blog

Falling Awake

 

I am reading a book of very strange stories.

One of them is called ‘Falling Awake’.

It is only six sentences long.

Here it is in its entirety:

 

I have no trouble falling asleep.

I have a lot of trouble falling awake.

Sometimes I sleep ten to twelve hours a day before snailing towards the light.

One day I will fall asleep and not fall awake or fall awake and not fall asleep.

Neither prospect daunts me.

I like adventures; no matter how short.