Naomi Simone Borwein
They ring incessantly,
the peel of little tin bells.
Dark clouds eddying under eyelids.
The metallic taste of sanguine
dry lips, and tongue—
from this Insomnia.
I hear the high-pitched whine of copper wires,
feel the gnaw of
bones burn as they disintegrate
in my jaw and hands.
Joints nestled in the curvature of hips
Eroding.
In the lightless waves of night.
Metronomic intervals
tick away, time
I register in Sensory
Overload.
NAOMI SIMONE BORWEIN is an interdisciplinary scholar and artist. She holds a PhD in English literature from the University of Newcastle. Her criticism and writing appear in Springer, Palgrave Macmillan, Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, and elsewhere. She is the current head poetry editor of SWAMP writing. Naomi is interested in Imagism and various Modernist poetry movements in the twentieth century.