You lie bent up in embryo sleep
below the painting of the blue fisherman without a pillow.
The cover kicked and tangled on the floor
the old house creaking now
a car going by
the wind
a fire engine going up the hill.

I've disentangled myself from you
moved silently,
groping in the dark for cigarettes,
and now three cigarettes later
still elated
still afraid

I sit across the room watching you---
the light from the street lamp coming through the shutters
hysterical patterns flash on the wall sometimes
when a car goes by
otherwise there is no change.
Not in the way you lie curled up.
Not in the sounds that never come from you.
Not in the discontent I feel.

the first part of Stanyan Street, Rod McKuen

This just happened to be the first page of the poem as it is laid out in the book, it is actually much longer. But I really loved that line, 'not in the discontent I feel'. Picked this collection from a second-hand bookshop last weekend. It is this intoxicating place near World's End, full of excellently witty gruff misanthropes, 'discontents'.