Slept

Unfocused eyes and an unsleeping brain Ponder frightening new possibilities, And other disturbingly plausible concepts: There are nights of insufficient sleep, And inevitable painful mornings Pondering the Radio 4 news. He thinks of tea brewed in pint pots And the stinging eyes of a nights silent tears. He lives for the cold of the December morning That more resigned souls can sleep through, Of waking at three, the world black and dreamless, Nowhere to go, although the twenty four hour garage Will sell you anything at any time. The non-sleep marks him down, He does not want to belong, does Not know who is demanding it - He seeks a different course: He weeps for the five am refusal to stop thinking, And the six am ache in the head, the refusal To sleep although it is the accepted routine - a wilful act of nonconformism. But such questions seem irrelevant, as he goes, Confused and adrift, Marching down a tree-lined street Towards the obscured hills, Black, not blank, and oh so dreamless Black, not blank, and oh so dreamless.