Salad # 16 : Still Life

Still Life (1984)

Starry night
quiet
as the flow of a teardrop
down the laughter lines
of an aged face
That is the way it was meant
to be
but no, not here.
A night
that would be silent
broken
by the anguished howl
of a whelp in exquisite
torment;
by the monotonous
clang
of the watchman's baton
making contact with the weathered 
steel
of a telegraph pole;
by the abrupt wail
of a sleeping
child
writhing in the agony
of some meaningless
nightmare;
by the strident chirp
of a cricket, and
the sated burp
of a horned toad.
The clamour deafens me
I cannot sleep 
I am too alive.