I’m too tired to write a poem.
My eyelids are sinkers fixed to a line
tossed into a subconscious sea
where I’ll hook the remnant of last
night’s dream. I was in a maze with the
ship’s lull and everyone I’d ever loved
wasn’t there. A Ferris wheel flung me
overboard into the bottomless deep of
waking up to the smell of coffee. Now
I set my bait for the catch again; settling
in with blanket to my chin, watching my
own fingers bounce from black pebble to
pebble on a keyboard. My arms flop fish-like
almost still alive by my sides. I was in
time and out of time with writing, but
out of sense and out of vision in an underwater
dreamscape crawled to shore, still
choking on actuality. Where the coastline met
letters on black pebbles to shape words
to shape language, I find myself writing a
poem about not being able to write a poem,
because my eyelids are sinkers fixed to a line
tossed into a subconscious sea
where I’m about to hook a fresh dream.
(Jana Ferreira, 2015)
Words & Things 