The Friday Poem on 09/06/23
We chose ‘Insomnia’ by James Nixon to be our Friday Poem this week because we are interested in all these gaps. They create the impression of things becoming disjointed or fragmented, and reinforce the glitchy, unsettled mind of the narrator of the poem. We love the imagery – the trunk that rucks up the carpet, the stacked night, the vast hotel. And we love the tone – fretful, frustrated, lonely – the poem is almost a lament for a good night’s sleep.
Insomnia
How did I ever fall to sleep easy as pressing the basement button
in an elevator sinking through the floors of my mind
and coming to rest at the lowest suite night stacked above me?
Tonight I’m trawling service corridors in this vast glitching
hotel dragging a sleep-stuffed trunk that rucks the long carpets
I’m a disturbance cannot find my room rattle locked doors
Time passes with a limp and clouds roll like arthritic bones
within the gristly sky I try to fix a pillow to my face but late streetlight
needles against the ceiling and down feather is not exactly opaque
The veins in my eyelids glitter and sparks set fire to the darkness
like dogfighting adversaries The curdling morning is a spiteful time
the day before me like an eerie ditch at which I never imagined crying
