Love

I walk about all night and fall sick in the day
Days I spend with eyes burnt out and nights with eyes alive
Each evening I will myself to rise and walk
And energy like ether fills me.
I pull on fancy pants and shiny suits
Like a madman in the dark
Lasso my spotted tie on a veinous neck
Snatch my cowboy hat from below my bed and
Fill white leather shoes in a hop. My fevers flee and all
Exhaustion escapes as I hit the midnight pubs
With disco dancing, and bursting music
That fills my soul with sound.
The faces of women I met and loved
Were so many kisses, promises and vows
So many apparitions and light-hearted phantoms
Inspired, interesting, imaginary imps
With ease I willed them disappear with the dawn
In the crazy nights I would do anything for them
In the sober days, nothing.

Sometimes I fall sick and can’t get up
I have to send for the doctor.
When the fever is real there’s no
Imagining it’s imaginary, it will not thus
Go away.

One evening, in the twilight, I couldn’t get up
I willed myself to, but I couldn’t
Each side of the bed was the wrong side, somehow
And I couldn’t chase my fever away.
I coughed my lungs out, but a face was stuck in my throat
My business ties could force nothing out.
Something was upset, but I ate my breakfast with appetite
I walked about all day and fell sick at night.

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Some things are imagined too easily, others are realised too late.