Lifebread

This is my home  town I
look down  upon from the
height of the University library,
laid out before me in the autumn
sun.  And  I am done. How
I am done.  My  body-brain-
continuum  cries to be allowed to
sleep unmoving  undemanding
unrelenting pressure of movement
is overload and shutdown.
I am recovering. I am
thinking of ways to live after this
place we all pass through
studenting. I am thinking
of all my past and all my
future - the present as
fulcrum for my  release
from my  own  chains.
I will touch books
and write.  No more
business-fright and money.
Proximity to power-trippers
is wearing thing. I have been
moving  too hard and long, I have
cleft my stick and stuck. I
have rammed   myself into a
wall and ignored the bloodpour.
But I am now  controlled by
my  own fear of shutdown and the
insular war one wages with the
voice within. Cold twin that
will not free me from its
whispering.  Such things can
drive you mad  - if you
let them.

And  so I grind my own hope
out of the meagre grains that
I have left, and trust my
milling ways will
let me bake some bread
from  all this gritted corn.
I turn and turn, my
hands  are worn, but I will
add the yeast I need,
and knead  and knead,
and bake the thing I
need to eat: my own  life's
bread.

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