Pillows

“To die, to sleep, no more” by David Rosen

 

pillows absorb

nightly traumas

the sweat-soaking panoply

thrilling and plaguing

this human condition

but how much

before they explode

beneath heads

too engrossed

in subconscious

delight or despair

give notice of

death in the night

 

 

(originally posted October 2013)

Bedful of Dreams

 

“Unmade Bed”
Painting by Eugene Delacroix

 

 

mattress memory

soaked with the stories

unconsciously seeped

from the sleep of the mind

so much insight of midnight

forgotten by daylight

naught left but to rebreathe

that bedful of dreams

every night and again

until something of substance

some germ of a thought

clings to consciousness

disregards dawn

and comes into its own

a vague fragment of verse

words awake put to paper

awaiting a muse none too picky

who knows how to

take an ambiguous start

to a sensible finish

what poets I wonder

put sleep to such use

 

Iron Bedstead

Antique Cast Iron Bedstead
Photo from ebay.com

no rest for the crazy
compelled to bide runaway
days in beds black as obsidian

heaving itself through
wrought curlicue shadows
it races through channels
that penetrate nights
soundless restless and
reckless its feet melt
in puddles of madness
while porcelain finials
spin with the heat
of an inhuman speed
the whole hurtling mass
on burn-to-ash course
with its conscious cadaver
to charnels no soul
ever chose or survived

no rest for the crazy
compelled to ride runaway
sleep into nightly oblivion