I think I'm a train wreck.

Apparently sleep is not an activity my body is willing to 
participate in.

Argh.  It's all Job's fault.

Anyway; here's my peace offering to the demons of mental stability.


SAINT VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE

Today I am the terrorist of love,
and I wage a war amongst Hallmark cards
and exploding bottles of perfumed scent;
every second toe-to-toe with the enemy,
no man's land left to the scars and shell holes
of week after week huddled in trenches,
spent praying for invisibility,
agonising over the call to charge
which blows a thousand times and never comes.

Do you understand your heroism?
That need for glory burning in your gut
like fire, incense and tracer bullets
unfolding bizarrely against your ribs
and driving you onward, onward, higher
till the rockets leave you shell-shocked and cold,
flat on your back amidst the mud and rain.

Speak no more of fire; O, say you'll speak no more.

We measure out our days in postcard stamps,
sent winging in from Paris or Madrid;
Sealed With A Loving Kiss, sent second class
and spun to make the sentences sound new.
'I miss you, love you, see you soon'; adieu!

With business trips and hotel rooms and guilt
we fight our wars, and timidly appease
our foes from flower stores and chocolate shops;
from every wall and card our Captain stares,
exhorting further misery and light;
good old Saint Valentine, master of spin,
reinvents Goebbels with arrows and wings.