Temporary Insomnia
By Carl Kopman
TEMPORARY INSOMNIA
I am not sleeping well…
since my return from Panama
A little groggy…irritable … slower to decision
what to eat… how to cook it…
what to do…how to do it
Who to love…how to give it
Before, during, and after…
Vulnerability
4:00 am … eyes closed…eyes opened… closed open
Searching sleep… recounting the day …
The night… the Trump…
And those poems I forgot to write
Morning on my river in Panama…
the sound of rushing water through
the mind, my mind …eyes closed, window open…
the breeze a breathe of memory…
fluttering thusly into sleep
window closed, eyes open
the dream a waking to the captured and lost
I toss, I turn… I listen for the horse
canting through my dreams but to no avail,
that was then… this is now…
I turn …I toss
I recount my investment… the dollars…
the sense… the non-sense… the
ticker-tape clicking debit and credit…
the litanies of my life … the good… the bad…
the truths… the non truths…what is theirs…..
what is ours… what is minutes.. what is minute …
what is grand in the scheme of sleep…
what grows.. what wilts… what tortures with its guilt…
what is the night what is the day melatonin ,
ambien… a warm glass milk… a book Salmon Rushdie… Eric Hoffer… fascism I start to think … but that’s worse… a curse …
the mind becomes a live …
seeking answers night turns to light….
humbling a jumbling of incoherencies
misty-minded I am a ghost in search
of a ghost in search of the night before
I remember there were shadows
And a shattering of glass
And a scream
A child …or
Was it a woman
Eyes open… eyes closed
Eyes closed
Yes,
Eyes closed
It is better
That way.
Carl Kopman
Berkeley
January/2020
Carl Kopman
Managing Editor
Carl is a retired school teacher, house painter, commercial fisherman and NYC taxi driver now living in Berkeley, California.
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