Dreams: David McLean

the body

the body is so obvious
and it needs memories
to be its meat, it needs
dreams and nightmares
so it can listen to the fingers
of the rain scratching dead
at the window

this evident body is me
though evidently it is not me
and it is poisoned deliberately
by each insolent minute,
by every second that piles
its eternity in me,
by each torture
floating in the blood,
by the coffin floating
thoughtlessly through our need,
by each forgotten drug

the body listens to the fingers
of the wind, they scratch at the window
like fingers clawing at a coffin lid,
like a thirsty corpse the wind sings

the body is a meaty machine full of dreams
full of devils and dead men,
we are children falling asleep
where only nightmares are still listening,
life is a dream and it's impossible to wake from