half-asleep thoughts.
You know those random (and sometimes not so random) phrases and images that sometimes float into your mind when you're drifting into a dream or just stepping out of sleep? I collect them.
They're slippery things to try and hold onto. Memory is at its thinnest in that liminal space between awake and insensate. I keep a handheld digital recorder beside me in bed and try to grab what I can. The subconscious fascinates me. It always has. This is one way of staring into its unblinking eyes and trying to carve out a conversation, however fragmented it might be.
Sometimes these thoughts are strangely poetic (time curls into fists that curve into countries). And sometimes they're just plain strange (why is cricket called cricket when there are no crickets?). Somewhere along the line, I started setting aside the more evocative brain blips and building poems out of them.
There are over two hundred of the the things now. This is the second one I ever stitched together. I think it's is still one of the half-asleep poems I like best.
An arm
is not a limb.
It's the ability
to put it all together,
and the long reason why.
Give it some air
between the ligaments
of guesswork
and distrust.
When did you first know
you were alive?
I'll tell you.
It was yesterday.
And every yesterday
is on its way
to being something
different.
Something better.
Something more like now.
(If it's obvious,
someone else
will drink it.)