SLEEPLESS

Sleepless sitting in a studio
with my mind racing
toward all the news
in a resignation of life
watching Akira Kurosawa's
"No Regrets For our Youth"
it is the night stillness
for insomniacs in the city
through a dim bedroom
with a shuddering light bulb
that won't turn off
or a fire of evening words
driving my diary narrative
which compels me
to put my embers of thoughts
taking my leave on the riverbed
by a voyage along the Hudson
near hot spotted painted easels
by a metamorphosed expressionist
left on Thursday at Central Park
as an easy bottled water burns
from a lemony light flame
in a kettle for green tea
needing a hand for a bath
away from idle conversation
from the swelling coldness
in my mortal open blanket
on the outer blackness
except for the quarter moon
hearing another half dreamed
nocturnal voice in person
on the spot of my memory
of Beat phrases from my hand
upon a daisy chain of the parting
soul of the concert pianist
wounded by life next door
for whom we left flowers
in a shroud of youthful appearance
of embracing respect in long lines,
I'm hushed in respite of mystery
glimpsing slightly on my telescope
the sweeping shadowy stars,
the transparent sky will bare
her own fervid witness
that a poet lived here alone
in a hot host of student housing
at a Manhattan brownstone attic
in an age of hope and comity
we furtively rush to figure out
with a skeptical penmanship
what's with this adolescent time
of weary metamorphosis
wanting a mathematical proof
that we are living to fight
against headlines to war
to challenge my pacifist horizon
in my undisclosed diary
near my stationed sunglasses,
communal phone,
and soprano sax
at my sound proof room.