Have you ever felt the icecold
gales of aloneness?

I do not mean
lone lee ness
which is something altogether
different –
simperingly subjective
and even desirable
(artistically considered).

I do not mean
dejected
forsaken, forlorn,
deserted or desolate,
neglected or torn;
for those words are shallow
compared to "alone".

I mean aloneness –
some subterranean thing of the soul
for which there can be no damage control,
which strikes from behind, above and beneath,
embitters the mind with heathenlike grief
and relentless abandon (a moorland own-goal)
[I could then also add a bunker(hell)-hole].

No man is an island
(a poet has said);
and maybe he's right
for a poem to be read!
But in the real world
(though we fool ourselves blind
with kisses and cuddles
and bodies entwined)
there can be no fool bridges
connections of mind.
The tree which falls earthbound
its own shadow finds.

Sparks of sparkling consciousness
which we ignorantly call "people"
are bundles of cells
which are made up of molecules
made out of atoms
consisting of energy
struggling to see themselves
having a form
(which is never too easy
in this ocean of storms).

Take your hand, as a stunning example.

Although it may seem
like a glorified claw
it is in fact so very much more
[or is it less?].
For although it looks to you
like a fleshbone solid mass
ninety-eight per cent of it
is in fact made up of space –
all those cells
by a trick of cool grace
looking to us like they're
concretely-based!

If only I could –
by a Trojan trick of the mind –
apply the same basis
to the drowning lake of
aloneness
in which
I
myself
find