SLEEPLESSNESS

Doubts and devils play mischief with the night,
Mispeakings linger in the ear otherwise deaf
As the dark is deep, quandaries better abandoned
To daylight, exposed to reason, than herewith
Struggled by Fear and Fright.

Breath too long kept imprisoned in the chest,
Faint heartbeat grown inexplicably louder As the distant walls begin to crowd
This expanding bed, comic refuge sought for rest.

Rest denied well into the early morning hour
Still so distant from first cock's crow or sunlight's grace,
An interminable, unbearably impatient place,
I'd drag the sun up from the depths had I the power.

With inadequate excuse did I seek sleep, Firstly to avoid fatigue come next day, Foolishly, untired to bed I went, then lay
Nervously awake, pray away to drift
the blissful Lethean deep.

Rise to pace the floor again, the room from end to end,
Skin cooling under vanishing to renewing dampness, beads
To vapor; stiff hot brandy could not now meet my needs,
A stubbed toe to tease, the pain forcing me to bend

At least, to a distraction, to break the brooding melancholy,
This flight from my own solitude, resigned
In panic to gorge the fear with food I find,
A feast in midnight's kitchen is double folly

The frets and furies of anxiously borne hours
Play wickedly my conscience, nagging,
Nagging over the last day's haggling,
The tastiest morsel in my mouth would sour.

Leave them back Get them gone
My yesterdays, like yours are over,
Yet they linger like some jilted lover,
Spurned, abandoned, left to suffer alone.

© Celeste Plowden 2010