Poetry: Half-Sleep I & II by Tuur Verheyde

Half-Sleep I

Mercurial waters fall upon 
My lips, I feel the black beckon me
To drink like a drowning man 
And relish each burning gulp 
Of scuttling air.

The watery depths echo 
Like a world within a world, 
Boundless and unconquerable, 
They dare us to attempt to
Plant our plastic banners 
In their fathomless deep. 
We try and the surface 
Swells to brush its talons across 
Our brief bristles of civilisation,
To cover us in sweet 
Dreamless humility. 

Half-Sleep II

I

My eyes close 
And with a silent spell 
I seek to summon my captors
Of salvation. Come
And steal me from my immovable 
Self, come and shape me, melt 
Me, that I may flow into 
Better moulds. Come, 
Priestess of the higher truths, 
Come, sagely mentor, bearded
And robed, come you, band 
Of post-punk spiritual 
Subversives, come and take me, 
Make me whatever wades best 
Through this world of banality 
And hardship. 

II

For many years I have warmed 
My bed to sleep with such harbingers 
Of disappearance. To vanish
Not to hurt nor to worry, to escape
Not from people nor from life, 
But break the bustle that pushes 
Every ounce of respite, even sickness
In its chained hourglass neck.

Imagine a release from that
Tyranny, which ploughs our bloodstained
Growth and claims whatever we may 
Reap. Imagine an escape from mandated
Progress per second. Imagine a retreat
Into an unguided, unseen existence; 
Its playful wandering rewilding 
The laboured acres of the mind 
To deliver unto you the kind
Of priceless boon no market 
Could ever hope
To sell. 


Bio:
Tuur Verheyde is a twenty-four year old Belgian poet. His work endeavours to capture the weirdness of the 21st century; its globalised art, culture, politics and problems. Tuur’s poetry seeks to further cultural, spiritual, political and emotional connectivity on an international level. His work is personal and outward looking and seeks to accurately represent the blurred boundaries between the real, the surreal and the hyperreal, as well meshing the personal with the political and the spiritual. https://tuurverheyde.com