Branches piled into a bivouac,

Paralleled in protection

Where he can lay his head

Among fox holes and bird nests [1]

Criss-crossed skylights

Looking up to the drifting clouds

Reflecting London’s light

 

Bedded among bluebells

Under trees claimed by invader

Parakeets screeching their green

Above paths beaten by strangers

Wanting to understand his dreams

On the royal road to the subconscious

Littered with yesterday’s food

 

Plasticized cardboard

Compressed into takeaways

To become his meals on wheels

Rolled into a joint of hemp

Or somebody else’s give-aways

That escalates the image

Into memories forever damaged

 

Yet he wakes from the latency of sleep

To discover the freshness of a new day

Manufactured by the sleep machine

Of free-floating ideas

Energising the soul

Prepared for nothing more

Than the wakefulness of tomorrow

 

With Schimmelbusch dripping his ether

Mesmer waves a hand

And Hypnos yawns wearily

As Freud scowls in disgust

At the one who neither slumbers nor sleeps.

But the creator of the mystery of night

Confirms He’s no mere dream.

23 February 2008

On discovering a vagrant’s bivouac in Hawkwood, and after attending the ‘Sleep and Dreams’ Exhibition at the Welcome Collection, London. For more pictures see: Bluebells in Hawkwood

 

 

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