‘Oh the mind, mind has mountains.’ Gerard Manley Hopkins
Death ends but not every day dies with sleep.
Engines grind down at the darkened cross roads –
passengers tilt forward, cargoes shift –
then – headlights sweeping the room’s bare walls,
slashing the night – accelerate out of reach:
goods secured, people insouciant.
In the silence, in the empty stillness
that follows, I am awake, restless, waiting
then nightmared. I cannot control, resist –
whatever they are – ordinary thoughts,
admonishing angels, sheer demons. They
scale me, plunge me… Next day, all day, I feel
I have been in madness.
admonishing angelsbare wallscargoescross roadsdarkeneddeathenginesgrindinsouciantmadnessmind has mountainsnightmaredpassengerssheer demonssilencesleepstillness‘Dark Soul Of The Night’‘Oh the mind’ Gerard Manley Hopkins
John Huddart
May 1, 2014The first line one of the best, with shades of Donne, or Shakespeare, or all of them Jacobean masters! Actually the haunting night of verse two has been well prepared for in this line alone, because those guys too knew all about devils and demons.
So the shuddering vehicles at the crossroads are both real and imagined [a fine verse], and controlled – but the effect of verse two shatters – and the last line, broken in spirit and unfinished in rhthym – is equally fitting and right.