6am:         Rising to crackled reception,
                I breathe,
                stomach rising
                and falling,
                this, the mimicked serenade to sunrise,
                performed the whole world over.


8am:         In the kitchen,
                stale bread
                and a coffee cup
                invite me to breakfast.

                Reading headlines,
                I count morning on both hands,
                four espresso ribbons,
                draped over the pages,
                filling where ink cannot.

12pm:       I lie on the small square of grass
                looking up into the apex of cerulean.

                Up on the gutter,
                sits a bird, still,
                below thick down,
                ticks suck out birdsong.

                This world,
                one of quiet tragedy.

3pm:         In the supermarket
                I watch people stocking up,
                each in a daze of commercial hysteria.

                They gather,
                these mindless fools,
                along rows of canned food,
                waiting for the first drops of New Jerusalem.

                Those first drops,
                that will explode this Babylon of polished floor.

5pm:         It’s raining outside,
                I look through an ocean curtain.


6pm:         There is silence at the dinner table,
                as I eat alone,
                except for sounds of car horns
                and the buzzing television set.


8pm:         The horizon now, is an old war photograph.

                Rooftops; the sharp no-man’s-land of lower sky.

                Clouds; mustard gas, gathering.


10pm:       I sleep.

                Men,
                screaming in the streets,
                cry tears of insanity,
                high above them
                novas smile,
                like tumors.

                All the air is violent;
                a dark storm of carnage.

8am:         I rise again,
                but in the past,

                                                “Ouvrir vos yeux”,

                                says a voice I haven't heard in forever.


                I turn and watch her raise her hands.

                She turns to me and whispers

                                                                                “Saisir le jour”.