'UNQUIET SLUMBERS FOR THE SLEEPERS'

'UNQUIET SLUMBERS FOR THE SLEEPERS'

"...and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth."
(Emily Bronte, 'Wuthering Heights')


Night vibrates to the far-near saw & hum
of motorway & airport, now & then
gets gutted by high otherworldly screams
wrenched out of helpless animals
or those we dare not think about
for fear they might be out there.

Mostly, though, this place limps past
on crippling clocks, a creaking door,
low-volume late-night TV shows, a lonely
child's baby snores along the corridor,
the whispering nib occasional on forms
defining lives, routines, ourselves.

In daytimes, chaos kicks you from behind
or chucks a cup or sets off fire alarms
& runs away while telling you to go & fuck
yourself. At night, it sleeps the way that
children should, wrapped tight in cartoon
duvet covers, cotton wool & splayed
like spiders, limbs akimbo on soft beds
in rooms knee-deep in vital clutter.

Silence, here, is bought by tiredness
of every kind, not word or plastic panacea,
& through it, every night, I walk afraid
of waking them before the crashing
sound of one more day that really breaks.

A piece about working a waking night in a residential children's home, a job I did for almost 9 years until 2007.

HOME

North Manchester, a night sliced wide
By rain for poor folk, wet like oil,
Dark as soot. Behind the bins a fox
Is chattering horribly & madly at itself,
Alarms howl in & out, sirens
Dot the borders of my hearing, wearily.

Shaun prowls the corridors like something
From The Shining, Malcolm
Hugs a monitor, destroying zombies with
A blur of calloused, practiced fingertips,
Samantha's out there, somewhere, missing
But not lost to anyone except herself.

Stephanie's on the run on bail
That's endless, a puff of dust at 15 years,
Craig begs rhythmically in sleep
That's not been sleep since he was 8
& overhead, upstairs, a stereo
Tattoos dull bass beats for the lonely & the late.

Two staff lounge in the office, soaking up
An O.U. course on Basic French
While I check each floor, each girning door,
Arrange some files, write brief & meaningless
Reports on what the 'children' did
Or wouldn't do today, & any other day,
& won't tomorrow, as they'll no doubt say.

By fag nineteen, coffee number ten &
Another risk assessment clear as mud,
The umpteenth poor attempt at blocking out
Life histories which should only now begin,
I must admit defeat, that I won't
Make that difference, influence a life,
Inspire a writer, scientist, explorer,
Football star to escape & change the world,
Any world. Why despair, when they
Don't even want to change their underwear?

Shaun yawns me out the door at eight
With See you tonight you baldie cunt...
Before he gives in to the struggle, goes
To bed & sleeps another day away
In a life filled, up to now, with nights.

The Crow

CROWS

Just another sentimental tribute
to a dead movie star. A cigarette

winks out with these words as the earth shifts
minutely on its heartbreaking axis,

not in Los Angeles or Washington,
but the front steps of Renfield Street Odeon

now where living & our sense of being real
return, reluctantly & frail.

Time-filtered words, life’s not like in the movies,
old mascara running down the world’s wet face

for now, because it was, & too exact,
that perfect stunt of fiction turned to fact.

Such death requires no second takes,
no coming back, no rotoscoped effects.

Amazement, later, in a crowded city bar,
at death twice over, actor & character,

the make-up still in place, the camera lens
recording what can never be rehearsed.

You’re not really supposed to die up there
like in real life, bullet holes should disappear

& a sunset be walked into before
the end credits roll. At the Odeon door

we’d stood in silence & the pouring rain,
getting used to a very end, & ran

through a night tilted briefly the other way,
the stars projectionists, the world’s screen grey.