Rituals Without the Magic

It's 4am and I should be on the move
Got to get up and atom and back into the groove

Had a deep good sleep but wasn't long enough

Getting out of bed pre-dawn has always been rough for me

I prefer to lay on and keep on drifting

Sifting through the residue of what I'd dreamt

Trying to dicypher what it may have meant:

Numbers, colours, totems, friends and foes

And, as the recollection goes I spiritualise plots and scenarios and bring in acts of God

Then I turn the exercise from theology to doxology and wind up my ruminations with thanks and praise as if I were Abraham

Resolutions and expectations made and set to lift my heavy soul for the day

That's my workout but I still can't work out why I'm fat and always late to work

There's 40 minutes to get out the door or I'll be aborted by my boss

40 years of baby steps and I'm still at a loss as to how to start the day with pert and perk

My eyelids shut as I doze off again in a microsleep

Until my alarm blasts in my ear like the angel's trumpets

Like a dance of limbo, with each bell the pole of my aspirations is lowered

I miss out on time for treasures like marmalade jam on crumpets

Laundry piles and the garden dry sob like children being abandoned

Suddenly I am out the door like Adam and Eve in rude shock

And on my way to my steely chariot, feeling rather naked

Didn't get time to wash my face or groom

It's a zombie race and I'm at the back under a laughing moon with a humiliating sense of deja vu