for Tom Waits
The darkness within darkness
comes and so the child in
all of us rises, after midnight,
slipperless, with no lights on.
Still asleep, he or she walks
barefoot over cold floors
headed towards warm rooms
that are never there. All
nightmares last well into the day
that follows. Attempting to
forget merely guarantees that
we will not forget. The blinds
are closed, the doors stay shut.
Shadows gather. Darkness
within darkness comes, and
so the child in all of us rises.
Canadian-born Ian McBryde has been well-published both in Australia and many countries overseas. His fourth collection of poetry, Equatorial, was published 2001, and he has just released his second CD of spoken-word, entitled The Still Company. His next collection of poetry, Domain will be released by Five Islands Press in 2004.
