sometimes its good to say out loud
"nothing has happened"
that i feel weary and chilled is of no consequence
and that i run about the streets all day
is of my own conscience
i defend myself although i know it's all over
a moment more and everything will have lost its meaning
the table and the cup and the chair to which i'm clinging
mine is a lonely face i thought to raise
and sought for some familiar thing
for someone i'd once seen
but there was nothing there
there will come a day when my hand is far from me
and when i bid it to write
it will write words i don't mean
when my harp is tuned to mourning
and my organ the voice of the weeping
with a somnambulic certainty
i drag back my deepest fears
a childhood illness i had conquered
begins in me again
the fear that i might betray myself
and tell you all that i dread
mine is a lonely face i thought to raise
and sought for some familiar thing
for someone i'd once seen
but there was nothing there
and if i fall asleep
the fears the fears the fears
that i might swallow a piece of coal
or a number might begin to grow
in my brain
until there's nothing left there