Dark and Light, Alone at Night
He sleeps alone now
In the twilight years
In the old house up on the hill
Where the storms roll in
From the north
From the Arctic
From the sea
The grey slate tiles rattling
And rippling
Under slate grey skies
Big, big skies
Out here in the east
Under Norfolk-blasted gales
The onslaught of the wind
Like the strum, strumming
Of a tuneless lyre
Played badly
He sleeps alone now
In the chill winter wasteland
As the snow plays softly
Against the high window
Spiralling flakes
Across tall rooftops
Beneath which
Victorian gentlefolk
Once played whist
And laughed and drank
Amontillado
As their servants skulked below stairs
Chewing the stale crust
Of injustice
He sleeps alone now
Though sometimes
Only sometimes
She comes to him in a dream
Her hair long, curled and black
On her long topaz-blue dress
To pierce the sharp loneliness
Of dread dead nights
When the gusts have dropped
And the stars come out
Glittering sharply in their propensity
A canopy of errant fools
He sleeps alone now
Though sometimes
Only sometimes
The black cat comes
(and the black dog too)
And licks his face
With her rough tongue
Pawing for warmth
And love
And companionship
In the stone cold villa
But he has none to spare
He is empty
A husk
He sleeps alone now
Though sometimes he wakens
Early in the frosty morn
Shapes crystalising on the pane
Like shattered hopes and dreams
The horizon still dark
But the moon is up
The sickle moon
A silver, slither crescent
As if brought far from Arabee
Where its standard flew
Above the armies of Islamic state
Some called them Outremer
Some Sharia
Destroyer of civilisations
He sleeps alone now
In fitful dream
Of crumbling, sun-kissed fortresses
Far away
Sienna stone
Bathed in unnatural golden light
Of minarets and concubines
Scimitars and sultans
Kashmir rugs, sweet opium
Hasheesh pipes and velvet vices
Ozymandius, Byzantium
Defeated, crushe
Annihilated
He sleeps alone now
The distant lighthouse
Up on the cliff
His only company
Shipping an orange beam
Into the cobwebbed corner
Of the attic room
On
and off
On
And off
Every five seconds
He knows
Because he counts to five
For he is always awake
For he cannot sleep
He cannot sleep alone now
altutt 