Counting Sheep

How strange for me to sing of insomnia; I sleep
like wood or rusted nails in buried coffins. We believe
in free will but listen to astrologers, throw the tarot.
Name. Small events. Birthplace. Faded journals
or the lighter shade of wallpaper
where someone's picture used to hang, stained
with cigarette smoke & dust. There's the sound
of dice on the table next door, 2 AM, the point
I'm always trying to escape, to leave nothing:
no memory of moonlight on the river or breezes
through open windows, of trains squealing
on the tracks below; no weary patina
of ashtrays or sidewalks or
clocks chiming Now! no thunder
announcing its storm. Free of memory or desire,
the slate's blurred by erasures
like a northern evening that lingers far too long
and we sit watching twilight lose itself
to darkness, never knowing
exactly when it's lost.

Copyright © 2007 Glenn J. Freeman All rights reserved
from Keeping the Tigers Behind Us
Elixir Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission