Last Year's Autumn Poem

[Doreen Peri]

I haven't been writing. Just found this in my files. November 6th last year.
.
.
4am, not a wink or partial dream.The thought of sleep keeps
dripping in between synapses, braindrops echo off the frontal
lobe, ears hear the voice of myself talking incessantly drip drip drip,
curving 'round bends, watering the hems of a decaying garden,
autumn leaves blanket tree roots, the hoot of an owl asking who
is responsible for the seasons? Who caused this constant grey
day not yet light?

Soon, the white snowfall, pure white, moonlight blinding off a
reflection and all of the thoughts, the constant thoughts,
the interjections, dissections of partial truths mixed with lies
and I am wide awake counting years like sheep, wondering
where they went after jumping over decade fences,
intent on perfecting the ideal run-on sentence, life without parole,
electric chair, firing squad, god oh god what the hell is this hell?
Who can tell me how the time has passed when nothing lasts
but ideas?

The view from the window
seems a bit clearer after I cleaned off
caked on nicotine streams, a beam of light
from the street pleads, please go to sleep,
please go to sleep, please please please
and there is no recourse, no force to make
me learn to pray, to crack kneecaps on
the concrete slab and there's a drab dismal
sensation floating inside the worms of the mind.

Isn't it funny how the brain looks like Medusa's
hair, all twisted like snakes, oh for crissake
when will this stop? Each thought rising
like steam from the pavement, the arrangement
of many years muddled into one or none and
all and I fight the walls I built with bayonets,
wrap the pounding brain with a tourniquet,
sweat hot-flash fiction into the stories I once
experienced, all running together like a discordant
rainbow all messed up with the colors seeping
into one another, lovers here then gone, another
brother dying, oh god, I hope not, but he's
sick and where is my daughter?

She's out in the cold night storm,
wondering whether morning will come,
deaf and dumb to the signals from an
approaching train, perhaps, oh god, I hope not.
The thoughts, the nihilistic thoughts, the fear where
dreams should be, instead, the deadening music
of rain rhythms, one year, the next year, the next
and the next, and I was only sixteen but I carry the
rapes in my belly, fire surging up to my chest,
my heart in a marathon race. What is this place?
Why am I here?

I have no fear of being stabbed by ancient screams
or drenched by dirty pounding torrents!
I'm not afraid. I'm tired. I'm just tired, that's all,
examining the fall through the mist of glass, wide awake
during the overcast night but morning comes soon,
the moon will put away his lamp, blazing sunlight hot
upon my brow and then I'll try to finally sleep somehow
while listening to clangs and bangs of garbage trucks
taking away remnants of glass and debris labeled
yesterday and taken away to be dropped into landfills
where we'll never be able to dig them up again, notes
on napkins and envelopes, important notes with phone
numbers and names, notes to ourselves to make sure
we get it all accomplished and sometimes I feel my
brain is an accomplice to a life of crime because I should
be executed for thinking so much.

At least, then, sleep will come.
Keep these estimations of value of what I say
to yourself, OK? We wouldn't want the neighbors to suspect
I'm insane. They have better garbage than I do, anyway.
More empty champagne bottles, more boarding passes,
but what do I care? What does that have to do with it?
Dare me to tell you and I will. It's 4am and I wish I had a pill
to knock me out. No wait. It's 5am now. It took me an hour
to shout about these confusions. Insomnia isn't for sissies.
I'm telling you that. Again, I plead, please keep all
this under your hat.

november 6, 2014

[WIREMAN]

Medusa like a coral reef.....right,write, Orville & Wilbur Wright, by the light, don't you know those are the 1st words my daughter spoke .....miss your poetry...

[saw]

Hopefully you are sleeping better these days...insomnia however is a great motivator to tell the stories of a sleepless life with all it's torment front and center...yin and yang....poetry vis a vis sleeping or lack there of.....why aren't you writing now ?....you have much to offer

[Doreen Peri]

I think I posted this before under a different title... "somnomulist? ... can't remember.. something like that.. Thanks for reading and replying to everyone!

I still write in my head every day... just need to get it on paper again...

[Steve Plonk]

Great brainstorm during insomnia...Best poem I've read lately about
thoughts which flit through ones head while trying to relax for sleep...

[Doreen Peri]

Great brainstorm during insomnia...Best poem I've read lately about
thoughts which flit through ones head while trying to relax for sleep...

I haven't been able to sleep since I saw your reply to my poem since your reply meant so much to me! (That's a good thing and humor)... Thank you!

[K2.]

I can relate to this. I have bouts of insomnia where my mind races from one thing to another.
Best thing to do is just close my eyes and go with it.

K2