by Carl Halling

Created on: September 24, 2011

I Hate Those Long Long Spaces

I hate those long, long spaces

Between meals and drinks

Specifically the afternoon

And after midnight.

I hate mornings too

Until I can smell the bacon

And coffee. I cheer up

Towards the end of the afternoon,

But my euphoria stops short

Of my final cup of tea.

I sink into another state of gloom

Until my second favourite time of the day.

My favourite is that of my

First drink and cigarette.

I hate those long, long spaces,

Specifically the afternoon and after midnight.

Afterword:

'I Hate Those Long, Long Spaces'

Was recently conceived

From thoughts confided to a notebook

Sometime between 1981 and '83

While I was a student

At the University of London.

As I see it, they betoken

An undiagnosed depressive condition

Which ultimately led to my contracting

A serious drinking problem,

And ultimately some kind of crack-up,

From which I emerged while not unscathed

Another man entirely,

And while I'm still the victim

Of a depressive condition, it's not as it was,

Which is to say, one alleviated

By spells of great elation,

And yet fundamentally rooted in desperation.

Today, it's seen by its sufferer as long term

Yet temporal, to be dispelled,

Once he comes into a new glorious body,

Which is his hope and his prayer,

So all the sicknesses of the old,

Will be a thing of the past, never to return again.

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