too fast   too random   too very much all at once
is this mind churning and tiring now
like a thundercloud clapped and rent
of its rain or like a mad and frantic
cogwheeled machine suddenly gone from control
too ringing   too singing  too very much buzzing
is this strange and wondrous cloudbursting
cogwheeling mechanism which paces thus
races this cramped but flying hand
holding pen in the buzzsaw humming
of creation and poetic invention
too near  too clear  too very soon lost
the needed words to this brain
like a bursting bowel sac and so soon
lost they are that they seem as brief and
once only friends gone to rest
too close   too soon   and too very much like day
break climbs the pressing push of morning’s rising
calling of duties and loyalties and a world
that can’t wait for the responsibilities
of any man to be undertaken
completed and neatly filed away
too weary  too empty  too very much like death
is this brain that meets the windowed rain
bugle tapping            is this body
that rises in reluctance from the tomb
measured one night by a time
and so it’s goodmorning gand and breakfast time
around the magical milk and cereal square
of fragmented conversant
and such is life
and so it goes
and so pass the toast please

Ian David Arlett

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