Sleeping The Sleep Of Angels Off Duty Poem by J.L. Nash

SLEEPING THE SLEEP OF ANGELS OFF DUTY
Or
All at 6’s and 7’s

I

I am going to China
My flight is soon so I have
To say my goodbyes but
There is a block of flats
1970’s style
Going up in the lift
Everything is dirty
Urine stained corner, run down
My father lives there but
I never get to see him
Everything is muddled
The apartment is old
Crammed with books next ‘peeling walls
The light is half light English
Grey light no light deathly
There is a large carpark
Beneath the building with
Many empty spaces and
Empty shopping trolleys
This building holds onto
A sense of abandonment


II

But then I am in China
Everyone has Fu Man Chu style
Wispy moustaches and beards
With old weights and measures
Apothecary shops
Offering me bowls of rice
With white and blue painted
Chopsticks too long to hold
Dusty wooden benches
I hate rice
Around the shop there are mountains
But on the ground everything
Is stepping stones in water
Just like a Japanese
Ornamental garden
Cherry blossom trees are
Painted onto the dreamscape
Water there is water
Trickle tumble cascade
Bright white new light like a film
Happy unreality

III

I am riding a blue
Motorbike small silver blue
Copac not Yamaha
I have to find my way to
The airport so I drive through
St Paul’s School which is not
As it is, separate from
Other things but part of the shops
The boys are dressed like old
Etonians I drive up
Steps encouraging my
Mother to follow on her
Motorbike a but a man
Pushed it up the steps for
Her was it you Jimmy?
The police are at the top
Set of steps looking out
Over a road in Bedford
Not London more cobbled
I drive to a charity
Shop where I find 5 black
And white pictures of reef fish
Angel fish, barracuda
A Picasso fish and a
Spiny shell. Can’t remember
The other but I know
They will look good in my
Bathroom while Jimmy is
Feeling the material on
An old woman’s tee-shirt


IV

Look in the Tee-shirt section
I buy the pictures and a
Pair of beige corduroy
Trousers but the bill is
Over 60 Pounds I know
It is overpriced and so
I say so, I say that
I have new mathematical
Skills in my head I say
And I ask them to recount
To explain how much each of
The items cost they muddle
It takes time and I know they
Think I am mean but
I won’t
Be cheated it seems they have
Charged me for a woollen
Kaftan I did not want
And I am right but don’t pay
For anything but it is
Ok as I walk out I
Am wearing the trousers
But still I am getting to
The airport
I have seen this
Airport before in other
Dreams it is not Heathrow
Or Milan or LAX
But huge escalators and
Glass partitions I have to
Catch my flight to China