Asylum

White-coated greetings,

stinging questions,

 

back with the morning,

drone straight at me,

 

then swarm past,

turmoil in their wake,

 

a whirlpool of noise,

muddying the air,

 

spinning, sucking me

into its still-centre

 

of thrumming silence:

and I curl myself up

 

in my rolled-up vacuum,

my solitary

 

where I hang out my days,

one by one, back turned

 

to the here-and-now

peeping in, rattling keys.

 

Still, after the pills,

a nightingale sings:

 

the trees have sparkles

in their hair:

 

wide-armed, I can

inhale the world,

 

roam knee-deep in darkness,

and be myself till dawn.

.