Sleep Aid
by Dean Young
Do you wake up sooner than you go to sleep?
Do you have trouble falling?
Is your heart made of fire but your mouth ash?
Do you think of your life as a black hole
and everything hurried along,
every amphibian, every eyelash
hurried along?
What other drugs are you taking?
Can you spit them out?
A tiny cathedral lodged in your lung?
The sequence of heads wrapped in barbed wire
that is your genealogy?
Whose trachea is that lying in the road?
Whose English teacher is that lying in the road?
What blank is yours to fill in
regarding the worm's intestines?
How can you withstand the termites' gnawing,
popsicle stick, the true cross, makes no diff,
gnawing?
Are you avoiding the sun?
Hang up a minute.
Would you like something sweet?
I don't think it's counterindicated.
You may feel weak.
Perceive an errant sheen.
A stinging in the palms.
If you're planning on staying alive,
a glass of water brought down a dark hall
by a known hand is a boon.
It's not the skricket of the cricket
but its silence that is clairvoyant.
Someone's shaking out a great plastic sack
until it nearly pops with empty satisfaction.
Because it's a children's book
maybe the terrible things happening
are just there for the funny drawings.
Well, it's colder than we thought
standing by the window. And the basement?
The cat's found someplace warm to vanish.
Dean Young (American, born 1955) is considered a descendant of New York School poets Frank O'Hara, John Ashbury, and Kenneth Koch and has been heavily influenced by French surrealists, particularly Andre Breton. "Sleeping Aid" comes from his latest collection, Fall Higher, published this year by Copper Canyon Press.
Hear (or read) an interview with Dean Young about his recent heart transplant and scroll down to hear him read his poems:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136358656/the-heart-of-dean-youngs-pre-transplant-poetry
Another poem by Dean Young appeared earlier in this blog:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/entry.php?778-From-My-Commonplace-Book-6
by Dean Young
Do you wake up sooner than you go to sleep?
Do you have trouble falling?
Is your heart made of fire but your mouth ash?
Do you think of your life as a black hole
and everything hurried along,
every amphibian, every eyelash
hurried along?
What other drugs are you taking?
Can you spit them out?
A tiny cathedral lodged in your lung?
The sequence of heads wrapped in barbed wire
that is your genealogy?
Whose trachea is that lying in the road?
Whose English teacher is that lying in the road?
What blank is yours to fill in
regarding the worm's intestines?
How can you withstand the termites' gnawing,
popsicle stick, the true cross, makes no diff,
gnawing?
Are you avoiding the sun?
Hang up a minute.
Would you like something sweet?
I don't think it's counterindicated.
You may feel weak.
Perceive an errant sheen.
A stinging in the palms.
If you're planning on staying alive,
a glass of water brought down a dark hall
by a known hand is a boon.
It's not the skricket of the cricket
but its silence that is clairvoyant.
Someone's shaking out a great plastic sack
until it nearly pops with empty satisfaction.
Because it's a children's book
maybe the terrible things happening
are just there for the funny drawings.
Well, it's colder than we thought
standing by the window. And the basement?
The cat's found someplace warm to vanish.
Dean Young (American, born 1955) is considered a descendant of New York School poets Frank O'Hara, John Ashbury, and Kenneth Koch and has been heavily influenced by French surrealists, particularly Andre Breton. "Sleeping Aid" comes from his latest collection, Fall Higher, published this year by Copper Canyon Press.
Hear (or read) an interview with Dean Young about his recent heart transplant and scroll down to hear him read his poems:
http://www.npr.org/2011/05/23/136358656/the-heart-of-dean-youngs-pre-transplant-poetry
Another poem by Dean Young appeared earlier in this blog:
http://forums.phoenixrising.me/entry.php?778-From-My-Commonplace-Book-6
