Another Poem

Sleep on the Lam

Abandoned by Morpheus

I dread the dead of night:

the tangled bedclothes,

the pillow I fight,

the clock on my nightstand, stabbing the dark

with merciless digits of light.  

Marauding words and worries

spend the night inside my head:

an unfinished poem,

an apology unsaid,

an obstinate tune, persisting ‘til dawn

holds me hostage in my own bed.  

My roommates are accomplices

to this robbery taking place:

a man with a chain saw,

a cat stealing space,

a brute in the ceiling that bucks and roars

while waving its arms in my face.

The world outside my window

adds the blow that seals my fate:

the hoot of a night owl,

the shrieking of brakes,

the hoodlum next door who murders my sleep

with that wake-the-dead music he plays.

I long for the balm of the body bag

and promise not to tell

if you hurl me into a whirlpool,

or down a lovely well,

or poison me with the Nightshade tea

that will end this lidless hell.

Ginger Dehlinger