The Unmade Bed

Artist Tracey Emin

The Unmade Bed


Emin’s bed leaves me ‘unclean’ and sad for
her suicidal past.  Were it mine, I
could not display it, I would set it on 
fire but many more images might erupt,
just burning to be exorcised exhibits.
Beds are where all of human life reclines:
the secret, the hidden, our tears, joys and 
dreams, sex and birth, sickness, death and dying, 
all borne of the body and the soul.
A passion for sleep may be a death wish
but in my brass bed  I  live half a life
where dreams are, where books are read by candlelight,
where thoughts come and poems bubble to the fore.
Warm as a womb, a haven, soft, secure, 
it is never ever made, the white linen 
only shaken and daily aired to change
its energies.  Imagine my hell now:  
never feeling tired, keeping going,
never sleeping, keeping going, never 
stopping, keeping going, never resting, 
keeping going, never ever finding
time for  lying down and dreaming
till we end our waking lives and die.



Cait O’Connor


Magpie Tale time again, go there for more.