listen to - waking the witch by kate bush whilst reading



The oil and the needle - Elijah Tiger



I wake up in my own bed                 again

my days are a peaceful war

Father Time never liked me too much

I stumble about most days             unsure


the clock has already switched its

hands a dozen times

before I roll out into the day

poems, letters are     scattered     everywhere

I lost the                     hour              again


I remember to eat a piece of bread

olive oil coats my fingers

a daily worship of mine

perhaps my only time-keeper

my only       lover         these days


I even remember to go outside

I haven’t danced in five days

five      olive       oils

five      pieces   of     bread


letters and poems         scattered         everywhere

I remember to pick you some flowers

I’ll take another            five            to send them


I’m quite sad really

yet laugh often

                                    who   is that?

I fall back         dreaming easily

even after my daily rage


I reach my hand     out

to myself

and I take it

creating my own timeline

happily trapped within

            radical                 imagination


and have you noticed I am kinder to these words

these days

since you’ve been here


I am an offering

to these dreams of mine

I have not been this

soft

in a                                             while


                                                    what a revolution


I am unsure of                           everything

my body and my mind are reminding me

I am not at home

I attempt to remind it

I am only alive                        in my dreams

so

hurt me it cannot


tangerine licks in my cheeks

I draw the needle back

on the record for the             nth time today

the song rushing to               finish quicker

each time                                it is played


what would I do without my two timekeepers?

the oil                                       and the needle