Last Night

Last night I saw you in my dream
wrenching the hands off the clocks
Vicki Feaver  White Tulips

There you were in the dark
in a kind of frenzy, barefoot
in the kitchen and it could have been
midnight or four am, it was hard to tell,
you had all the clocks off the walls
off the mantelpiece off the sideboard,
had smashed their glass like dinner plates,
now getting hold of the hands,
wrenching them, prising them, pulling them off.
Some came easily - the kitchen wall clock
its hands like plastic chopsticks now
littering the red lino in the moonlight,
but the little ticking carriage clock
would not yield its hands to you
so now you had seized up a pair
of blue handled pliers and were
gripping the tiny spidery things,
twisting and yanking them off
and there was no time now.

Even the computer with its
secret digital clock in the corner
had been smashed to the floor.
You were all fury and determination
awake or sleepwalking,
I couldn't be sure as I stood
at the window staring in
through the uncurtained glass, aghast.
What now? Time is gone
but the moonlight moves
across the kitchen floor
inexorably, marking the passing
of minutes as surely as clock hands,
so will you come outside
and try to wrench it out of the sky?
What of the sun which in a few hours
will be climbing the sky in tiny increments,
minutes, seconds?

Lions

Into my dream come the lions
and wait for me outside school,
the hefty male lies down calmly
like a Trafalgar Square statue
the lioness stands ready.

Ready for me. I approach
terrified. These two could eat me
for breakfast, lick my bones.
Should I run, stand still, lie down?

What's to do?
The lioness is in my house
though I can't see her.
I duck in anticipation
of her leap from the wardrobe.

Sam Lee

Sleepless

Bought a loaf called Sleepless White (it cooks overnight) then went upstairs to the cafe where Kate Rusby's album Sleepless was playing. Drank tea then went to therapy where I talked about my dream about lions. Though not much.

Last night was every bit as bad as the bad old nights. Maybe three hours' sleep, looking at it as optimistically as possible. Listening to the Sleepio imaging recording (in your mind you go to a relaxing place - healthy-looking grass, little birds, a path leading down to a beach, take off your shoes and walk in the sand, feel the breeze and the sun on your shoulders...), reading Little O, listening to Radio 3 very quietly at 3.30am. Up at 5.50.

Solace

Weird time out of time. A day off work. Yesterday morning I took off sick after a strange night with stomach cramps, nausea and diarrohea (but all fairly mild) and almost no sleep. Camomile tea and hot water bottle at 2am. I was then advised by school I must be clear 48 hours before returning to work, hence today at home, listening to Sun Kil Moon and catching up with the Mum admin, and... still sipping camomile tea, as stomach not feeling normal just yet. Mum admin today involved a phonecall, a letter, sending a copy of the Power of Attorney, also responding to an email about her flat, which is about to go on the market. Tomorrow I go down to London to see her. More white lilies. I hope I find her up and about this time. A visit to rr after will bring great solace.

Amongst

Raindrops translucent berries amongst the dark, swaying on the elder bush. A glimpse of sun amongst moving grey and white cloud.

I carry them to your house on my back, uprooted 
flowers, I’m bent double with the weight of them.
(Aztec love song)

To you, I'm coming to you, to your house
with these uprooted flowers on my back
this golden rod, these willow herb,
the tall dying flowers of the moors and verges
in sheaves, in armfuls, tied into bundles
and slung across my back.
I'm bringing them to you with the earth
dropping in tiny crumbling granules
from their roots, to you, to show you
that their time is up and gone
no way to plant them again
in the ground, amongst the grass along the lanes.

They are uprooted and dying as I walk,
their roots exposed and drying
their leaves wilted and curling
they are for you, for you, and I will
bring them to your door, great mounds of them,
the weight of them bending me double
giving me backache, buckling my knees,
drenching me in sweat.
You need to see them, beautiful and dead,
smell their green sappiness,
smell the soil falling from their roots.
I will leave them at your door.