Lifebread

This 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 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
whisperings.  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 worn, but I will
add the yeast I need,
and knead and knead,
and bake the thing I
need to eat: my own life
bread.

previous poem