Vertigo Rising

   
After an accident to my head,    
I was taken to hospital    
Disappearing in body and mind.    
     
When I finally emerged, pale    
And squinting in the sun’s glare,
I hadn’t felt it for months.

The lights of traffic & media,
The bafflement I had in public
Longing to be in my cocoon;

To sleep in a big, clean bed,
To gaze out my own windows
Overlooking the garden & trees.

The long killer summer with its
Triple digits left suddenly,
Follow’d by what I was dying for.

But now I found myself missing
The dreaded heat, insanity.
A siren call of paramedics.

Not of birds who hunted gnats
Down in the quiet garden below;
Jacarandas shake off their lint.

I’m confus’d when scorch’d wind
Pummels the trees, deaf’ning leaves
& feather’d fronds like cloudbursts.

But no rain from streaked skies
Falls, only wind chasing moisture
Of a monsoon where it came from.

These days I’m certain I’ve lost
My mind;  can’t tell one season
From another to save my soul.

The nights almost possess it for
Good; as I go fetal to write verse
After I circle the furniture.

Unsure, my balance in vertigo,
Makes the known unexpected
In the cool days of the stillness,

Nonexistent tho’ I breathe deep;
I don’t trust the fresh air as it
Comes in its creep from outside,

It thinks its been invited in.
Gnats from the garden downstairs
Realize too late their mistake.

After my Windex defense,
I awkwardly close the windows
And turn on my new air-con.

I distrust the air from that unit
(I don’t know where it’s been).
I turn off the remote as I shiver.

I’m unworthy to enjoy such
Extravagances, now that
Autumn is trying to encroach,

Giving cool breezes for free.
But they quickly make me cold,
So I can’t trust them EITHER!