Turmoil
My sleep pattern has never been great and has deteriorated since 2006. Most nights I have a period of wakefulness but have learned to be calm about it. Lying waiting for sleep to come back, reading, getting up for a drink or a pee are all part of the tactics to avoid upheaval. I have noticed that if I can sleep between six am and ten am I seem to get sufficient REM sleep to keep me going. Not at all a scientific conclusion but it works for me. Then of course, sometimes that all goes out the window. One such time elicited the piece below, as I frantically attempted to recapture some equilibrium. I was reading Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin at the time.
So read, enjoy, pass it on, send me comments through the link below.
Turmoil of the Night
After Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
Sheep stared at me when I woke
those same I counted at start of night
I tossed endlessly unhinging
sheet from mattress
bunching under back bum thighs
adding to discomfort - sleep failure
On replay no observable cause explains
whirling brain itched skin jumping legs
blinking eyelids increased body heat
working together with canny success
to maintain frantic wakefulness -
Counted sheep were impassive unimpressed
Peter Clarke
29th Dec 2022
And What About . . .
I have neglected this for far too long, and now it is time again. But what to write about, what poem to share? The world is packed with catastrophic possibilities. Such choices: dementia/genocide colluder or extreme narcissism in the White House; a hung parliament in the UK; the reunification of the USSR with a tyrannical megalomaniac at its head; the eradication of a race by a genocidal government in Gaza; the African continent reduced to bankruptcy and regression to male tribalism; in Ireland, even with an appalling electoral turnout the routing of the far right and Sinn Féin may offer some comfort except we face another FF/FG fiasco. Mother Nature rumbles on its rampage, raging against the human species’ abject destruction of the planet’s habitat. What the . . .
Being facetious right now is my only defence against absolute despair. So read, comment, pass it on, and send feedback.
City Walking and Cycling take 680,000
cars per day off the road
Irish Time Heading
More and more folk, cycling and walking, may
keep gases from greenhouses further at bay
This newspaper heading illustrates vividly
thousands of cyclists and walkers assiduously
stopping some cars on their journey
pushing them aside - making drivers quite surly
Mountains of metal - like scrapyards of sculpture
keep bicycle lanes quite safe - at this juncture
The new revolution is well underway
don’t get behind wheels - hear what they say:
Cars and their fumes play a very big part
the smell is quite phew don’t mention cow farts
Wear out your shoe leather walking
greet travellers with smiles while you’re talking
Force councils to make better spaces
to go out and about roaming those places
where vitamin D, and oxygen from trees
fill our lungs and our brains so we see
how to save us and this magical planet
except for some vicious old tyrants goddammit
Peter Clarke, 18th March 2024
