Pretensions To Solitude Poem by Frank Bana

A thousand and ten pages
Of Allen Ginsberg's writings
Bound in heavy solitude, squat beside the bed
The window sheets are white, Leonard Cohen's monotone
Harmonising to a Casio
Sweet Angel Words, unfinished poems and rhyme
Are sown in leaves of magazines
Strewn on pull-out, tear-off sheets
Inviting your subscription, although you have subscribed.

By snow surrounded, cornered on all sides
The taunts of immobility
Wild animals and ice, neighbours hover out of sight
Sensing blood and vulnerability
Resentment of the rentiers
Who integrate the drive.
So leave alone
Don't raise up or speed-dial with the phone
Do not disturb the sacred private life.

I wait for Monday, when the bus will run
The ice must melt, under the dawn's red sky,
Trace a map, create a pathway
For unseen escape
Into the world, white-collar crowd and crime.
Monday delays, ignores the laws of time
Emboldened by the sun in the skylight
Aspires to melt the white encrusted coat
That cloaks the silence in a lonely sign.