I burn my candle at both ends

I burn my candle at both ends. 

This is not what I 

would choose to do, 

but in its own way 

perhaps it chooses me.

To put my mind at rest 

is not a natural thing for me to do.

My body rests but my mind 

rages on, plagued and plucked at 

by vivid imagery and thoughts, 

dichotomies and similes, 

comparisons and homilies, 

fast flowing lists of trivia 

and entire vast coastal plains 

of raw poetry.

Tell me this, 

what would you rather 

have me be; a mind that sleeps 

and vegetates, or a mind that 

continues to create, to mould, 

to cogitate on worlds 

imagined and unreal?

Many questions hover 

here inside these restless, 

ranging hemispheres. 

Whether the enamelled nails 

adorning hands, or 

iron nails that scar them? 

Is there intelligent life 

on this blue planet, and if so 

then where may it be found? 

How can you tell one politician 

from the next, except by 

the colour of their lies?

Yes, I burn the candle at both ends. 

And yes, the wick has finite qualities. 

I may not last another night, 

I may be found at the foot 

of someone else’s bed.

You may yet discover me 

abandoned in some foreign wasteland.

I will not burn forever, and who knows 

where and when my two flames meet? 

But when they do, oh what 

glorious conflagration they will make!

Steve Wheeler © 4 September, 2021

image source: Patrick Feller

Waking

From stygian gloom of darkness 

close to a twilight morn, 

out of the fog of morpheus’ womb, 

consciousness reborn. 

Emerging from the mind laid mists, 

and reaching for the light 

it rouses into waking thoughts; 

shrugs off vestigial night.

Rich reruns of inchoate dreams 

fade swiftly into dawn. 

As dreaming time is brushed aside, 

reality reforms. 

Bizarre and surreal kingdom 

of dreams and fantasy; 

once more tonight I’ll visit you 

to keep you company.

Steve Wheeler © 29 June, 2021

Photo © Steve Wheeler 2020

Blinded by the light

Silence of the night 

Solitude and cocoa mugs 

Congeal together 

Motionless in dark 

Not a sliver of light here 

In this pool of black

My eyes are open 

Or perhaps my eyes are closed 

Too dark to decide

My clock marks the hours 

Sentinel of a time slide 

As it slips away

Sleep eludes me now 

A whisper of a garment 

Keeps me wide awake

Morning will soon come

Dawn will caress my window 

With her pale fingers

Insomnia reigns 

My mind busy with its thoughts

Resisting all rest 

I fall silently 

into the vivid dreams of 

Rapid eye movement

Sudden hypnic jerk 

Dream of falling from great heights 

Wide awake again

My bedside lamp stand 

Switched on inadvertently 

Blinded by the light 

Steve Wheeler © 10 March, 2021

image source

White Noise

Photo by Steve Wheeler

I was up at five again today to see the summer light stream \ through the curtain / but it wasn't this that brushed my torrid dreams \ aside it was more likely the turbulence of life in fact I'm certain /

that since the crisis hit us like a slow burning conflagration \ my brain has been exercised by thoughts of creeping doom / and it doesn't take too much imagination \ for my tired suggestible mind to irrationally assume /

that everyone I hold most dear must surely succumb \ and I will be the bearer of a lethal infection / But this although a remote possibility is pretty dumb \ to dwell upon when it robs me of my sleep and is only a vivid confection /

of a strained imagination. My dreaming offers little respite contorted as it is in strange \ contrived and convoluted tropes / and it makes me feel as though each night my rest is disturbed and rearranged \ as I am led away in ropes /

of anxiety down dark highways of doubt and fear to places surreal \ and disturbing / to a rational mind and every night the visions rear in mists of imaginings that are at once palpably unreal \ yet if I allow them to be so perturbing /

I was up at five again today to watch the dawn break silently beyond my window pane / and I am so very tired of all the white noise in my life and how it tries to shake my soul but in the final analysis another day of this has started and I am simply weary once again /

Steve Wheeler © 2 July, 2020