Blogging here has come to a near standstill as I teach Monday-Thursday from 9-3 and Monday and Wednesday nights from 4-10. I am tired, tired, tired. Some afternoons I find myself longing for a nap. This, of course, has me thinking of sleep, counting sheep, and sleepy poetry. Let's make that our topic for this stretch. Leave me a note about your poem and I'll post the results here later this week.
A poem I wrote in February fits:
ReplyDeleteReady for Sleep
Where is it written that I am ready for sleep
when I am in bed, laptop on knees,
new ideas wrestling with yawns.
In the pre-dream time, something has cut
every one of my ligaments,
leaving me boneless as a marionette.
Only then do I find the plot of the story;
only then do I slip into the true sleep,
hoping at the last to remember.
Or, failing memory, reinventing it all again,
though better, so much better, waking
to grasp like an archeoplelagic diver,
the lustre of the morning’s pearl.
©2011 Jane Yolen All rights reserved
Ideas like pearls--thank you, Jane!
ReplyDeleteFalling Asleep
Cool breeze stirs the sheets
on my grandmother's porch.
Train gives a coyote howl
and summer scents the night
with peaches and roses.
--Kate Coombs, 2011, all rights reserved
I didn't start out to write a Debby-Downer poem, but sometimes these things happen...
ReplyDeleteTHE SLOW WAVE
She sleeps deeply.
I hold my breath watching
and waiting for her
to breathe not knowing
what I will do when
her chest no longer rises,
hoping that some day
someone will care enough
to watch my ribcage as
intimately as I do this cat's.
GRAVITY
ReplyDeleteGravity (that creep)
Pulls my eyelids down,
Now I'm sound asleep
Goodnight Beantown.
(c) Charles Waters 2011
Sleep gentle sleep
ReplyDeletecomes early evening
for an hour.
Lulled by music
tired after gardening,
I can relax.
Then ideas come
Fresh,evolving exciting
to keep me up!
So I write through
midnight to three a.m.
developing a plot.
Instead of sleeping
ReplyDeleteI write lim'ricks and haiku
About not sleeping.
Mad Kane
Hi, Tricia--
ReplyDeleteJust stopping by to say that despite my sporadic attendance I love your Monday Stretches--some really surprising and interesting work has come out of them over the months...and I've now put it on my calendar as a recurring event! I'm working hard to get organized this summer to be a practicing poet, since I'll be teaching full-time next year and I'm anxious about it encroaching on my writing time.
My best approach, I think, is to synergize my writing self and my teaching self; hence my idea for a weekly prompt, something like "Overheard in Kindergarten." If you have any tips for prompting, do share....after you get some sleep!