Holiday 23

World Book Day

I suffer a recurring dream
every sixth or seventh night:
I'm walled in by the swelling reams
of books I'd meant to write.

Unclear if I'm imprisoned here
or slipped down, like a well.
Too dark, in fact, to read, I fear,
but I know the book-shop smell.

The fountain of neurotic lists
is ever-flowing in my head,
like all the girls I never kissed
and worse, the books I never read.

You'd think I'd wake with zeal and pen
and fill the pad with trying,
but pages made of if-not-when
are only filled by dying.