To sleep, perchance to dream," said the Bard. That is sometimes easier said than done. Is your sleep that of John Keats?
O soft embalmer of the still midnight!
Shutting with careful fingers and benign
Our gloom-pleased eyes, embower’d from the light,
Enshaded in forgetfulness divine;
O soothest Sleep! if so it please thee, close,
In midst of this thine hymn, my willing eyes,
Even when the eyes are willing, the sleep may not come.
And it would be sweet if sleep brought dreams in this cold month about spring, as in the "Winter Sleep" of Edith Matilda Thomas
I know it must be winter (though I sleep)—
I know it must be winter, for I dream
I dip my bare feet in the running stream,
And flowers are many, and the grass grows deep.
Is this month's call for submissions "sleep" or "insomnia"? I think those are two sides of the same coin. Maybe your sleep associations are more like Rita Dove's "Insomnia Etiquette"
There's a movie on, so I watch it.
The usual white people
in love, distress. The usual tears.
Good camera work, though:
sunshine waxing the freckled curves
of a pear, a clenched jaw—
more tragedy, then.
I get up for some scotch and Stilton.
I don’t turn on the lights.
I like moving through the dark
while the world sleeps on,
serene as a stealth bomber
nosing through clouds...
Or is it more like the "Insomnia" from my undergraduate poetry professor, Alicia Ostriker?
...But it's really fear you want to talk about
and cannot find the words
so you jeer at yourself
you call yourself a coward
you wake at 2 a.m. thinking failure,
fool, unable to sleep, unable to sleep
buzzing away on your mattress with two pillows
and a quilt, they call them comforters,
which implies that comfort can be bought
and paid for, to help with the fear, the failure
your two walnut chests of drawers snicker, the bookshelves mourn
the art on the walls pities you, the man himself beside you
asleep smelling like mushrooms and moss is a comfort...
I chose as our model this month, a "Sleep" poem from Rock Tree Bird by Twyla M. Hansen. I like the contrast of sleep seen from the perspectives of a child, teen and adult. I like the idea on this cold day that "the ancient ones" probably spent most of winter sleeping.
...the ancient ones
whose lives revolved around the same sun—sun worshipers—
who discovered fire, calculated the heavens, tracked stars,
who likely slept through most of this gloomy season...
What are your sleep associations? Do they come from your childhood, a baby or child's sleep, what dreams may come, or not come, along with restless sleep, nightmares, and no sleep at all?
The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2024
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