The Quality of 6.15am
it is still as expected & I am awake
thinking about jumble sales
&Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
a wood pigeon confirms what I feared,
I am truly awake,
none of that nonsense of hypnopompia
to make me wonder if I am actually dead
& that afterlife looks like 6.15
on a wet March Sunday;
unless the wood pigeon is a ghost.
* * *
down bone halls of my ears
ringing echoes & smothers it all
like a 1000 glasses being rubbed
by someone persisting in experimental sound
with a badly wired moog. in the campanile
the bells are in full force
this Sunday morning,
but who am I summoning?
& why are they coming?
* * *
no dreams to speak of from last night’s free cinema;
not even a trailer of colours
no pulled sheets of indigo, shame red, gutter snow white
draped across bedside mirrors,
no empty halls & nothing like Marienbad
not even any topiary of my fears
or repressed desires. the projectionist is away
& now the cinema has closed for the winter.
* * *
too early for breakfast, too late for more sleep
this is the margin of the day
where poems appear as scraps
under tissue paper, they retrace the palimpsest
of earlier attempts; the ‘feeling for things’
snagged on barbwire
from something bigger trying to escape,
lumpen, worm-shot & grey
in the light of the coming day.
Andrew McDonnell was born in Kent, 1977, & currently lives Norfolk. As well writing and teaching poetry, he is obsessed with the Tour de France and cycling generally. He’s still undecided if the two interests are mutually exclusive.