all these great poets
were bedridden
beyond and before
Keats and Proust
all sleepy-headed whiners
lying supine
on the whitest of sheets
softens the teeming brain
for ripe foggy thoughts
hair upon the pillow
wide and small
brushed aside
renews the white vessel
red coughs cannot undermine
the snowy world
of rising jagged ridges
of shadowed rivulets
completing the foundation
for rocky, runny thoughts
in this haven for shiftlessness
when to read
is only to write
as time is still
amongst the shafts
of the tiny Himalayas
the squirm
we can call a movement
within the discipline
of hospital corners
and the wondrous white
of no-further
yoked by white
these three layers
the dull patchwork
that sighs mediocrity
and takes no prisoners
of ambition
of fame
only the occasional sock
or a particle of dead skin
a tall order
for the gown
of a virgin
(First appeared in Crack the Spine, Issue 4, December 2011).
