A TYPE OF GETHSEMANE

After a rather troubled night's sleep recorded by Heterocon, my beloved really had to make an effort to get me out of bed and to the hospital for my blood tests. That was three hours ago and, still, I'm not properly awake. The positive to come out of the experience is that my first new poem, in some considerable time, has started to take shape. This is how it reads at present :

A type
of Gethsemane.
Not so much the pain –
more the agony.

Not the absence
of sleep –
more the ache;

an ache which penetrates
each sinew. If only
one had slept

like others do.
Oh, how you’d love
that luxury. Wait

for the next event –
everything burns,
each pore secretes
anxiety. Has it

all come to this?
Who knows
what follows
the restless night.

Malcolm Evison
09 June 2005 (third draft 11.36am)