Insomniac (I)

Chasing the tail of a day

that never quite ends

nor therefore begins,

plunging wide-eyed into fire;

burning crimson peaks of gold

that never quite sink

into coal-blackened night.

Tired to the marrow of our bones,

we party on, our restless bond

forged from the winter grey

of streets that weighed us down

with compromise and brittle truce,

the scrape and claw of nails on slate;

then a day we had seized rose

from the mud and took us on its torrid wing.

Now we circle the earth

at one thousand miles an hour,

forever reaching westward

lest the day slip from our palm.

Below, dusk quickens and stirs

a constellation of cities and dreams;

but here where the air is thin

sleep is but a memory, and dreams

but the noise and pulse of the solar day.

Fixers we are, strung out on nothing

but what lies between,

time without motion,

we are above the fray; yet still,

when sleep coils its chains

once again we shall fall

and the day, as it must,

start anew.

December 2012