Falling from windows
might have been better
than this sudden
sleep
people falling in twos, threes
by the office-load
by the building-full
to sleep
with battened-down eyes
twitches of dream
unscheduled restfulness
immense
cloud-vistas opening
great dawns of inner mornings
the yawning darkness eating
all sense
leaving nothing
but the silence and the absence
and the hollow sleep-sounds
and grief
among the waking
those lost by being left out
of this drifting, sighing calamity
beneath
a beleaguered sun
beneath the streetlights of sense and order
beneath the analytical heat-lamps
our time
defined now by disaster
of cities falling: one, and then
perhaps another, their falling being
the sign
of an end-time, of a loss
of an unwilling relaxing of grasp
of an unbearable surrender
to sleep.

In addition to his alternative-rock CD "Drive," recorded by his band Mad Melancholy Monkey Mind, and his various books on toys, Mark Rich has published poetry and fiction in magazines including Poem, Manhattan Review, Analog, Happy, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Electric Velocipede. Visit his Web site (or this one) for more about him.