Sleeplessness

Sleeplessness

By Jeffrey Bowen  (November 2019)

I lie awake in darkness.

My mind discovers a life of its own.

Images roll in like waves,

And problems float to the surface

With help or hindrance

 From unpredictable characters.

Nothing is resolved, everything unraveling.

I remember my first night in this room,

Wrapped in a sleeping bag before we moved in.

The humming of the city still echoed,  

But out in the country

The silence was surround sound.

I could actually hear it.  

The dark was a disquieting cloak.  

Tonight a sweet tragic song from my teenage years  

Plays in my head like a scratched up 45.

I hear the words again and again

To a point where the record skips.

 I forget the lyric, but I know it rhymes.

As my night mind wanders,

I dream that I am never quite on time,

Never packed but urgently due somewhere.

I wander through familiar offices

But don’t really know where to go.

Often I meet the bastards who made life difficult.  

In the semi-dark I trace the shreds

Of cold snowlight peeping through the window corners.

The furnace comes to life.

The pipes creak as their water veins swell.  

The dog sighs and shifts positions.

 So do I.  

But there is little comfort as my shoulders

Complain to each other,

And my legs refuse to rest.

 A distant train gains volume

As it works it way from town to town

And then recedes as it always does on schedule.

I remember my preset.

imprinted long ago when I had to mind the weather.

Retirement never stops me from awakening

Precisely at 5 a.m.

But that is two hours away.

 So I lie in stillness half aware,

And I wait, then wait some more.  

The images, my urgent mission,

 My teenage angst, the furnace,  

And my strange dark life

Recycle as I shift and toss.

Then gradually, but without warning,

I disappear.

 Later I can never remember when.