Rain Upon A Window's Glass Poem by Graham Stone

Haunted by the thought of sleep
I refuse to lay my head to the pillow.
Instead I leave a dull lamplight on,
Its blunt birth of light bursts pathetic lurches of illumination
Across my walls
And scolds the muggy shadows.
I take comfort in that gloomy glow.
My body lays sprawled in uncomfortable contortions
To chase away the chance of sleep.
It is too hot for duvet’s yet the glass I rest my face against
Sends sweet shivers through my cheek.
I fight all sense of thought,
Content instead to drone a lonely silent presence,
I imagine nothing and once or twice I feel not the need to breathe,
I am truly still.

I listen then, to a faint thump against my ear,
Thinking first I can hear the dull thud of my heart
Languorously throwing a sedated stream of blood through my body.
But the faint thump fastens, yet I am sure my heart does not.
The faint thump fastens still, becoming pats and taps
As apposed to the slow and heavy beats afore.
I realise then I am listening to a shy outbreak of rain.
As its rhythms multiply I lay still and silent as before,
Not moving, not thinking and not being.

then, I imagine how the rain drops hit the glass,
How the wind drives the drops by chance
To shatter themselves against my ear,
And how they smash and smear and run into one another
Continuously overlapping and splitting as they drip.

At last I find myself saturated by the incessant beat,
Its soothing and pleasant rhythm lulls me into a state
between sleep and empty conscience.
I linger there for a while,
Not quite daring to pass from one realm to the other.

Inescapably though, I start to follow the fall of rain
And slip softly into slumber,
Sinking into a blank and soundless dream
Where nothing is,
Except the drone of rain against the window’s glass.