sleepless reduces past
awesome, distorted essence
of all we have met
Adapted from the passage:
It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat. Insomnia opens the door to previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon, and any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies; we learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins, the backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret. The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.
From Sundog: a novel : the story of an American foreman, Robert Corvus Strang, as told to Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Washington Square Press Collection: New Yor, 1989).
It had to happen didn’t it?
I am now of the age when too much can impact my sleep, but on the other hand, when hasn’t too much impacted my sleep.
I mean how many plates of turkey, pieces of pie, chunks of chocolate, handfuls of cookies covered in icing and gallons of drink can one person imbibe and not pay for it later?
It was little surprise that laying down my brain and my stomach where both operating at 1000mph.
A Christmas carol earwig was stuck in my mind and maybe Dicken’s Christmas Carol was on my mind as well as it started.
The previously untraced memories, makes a mockery of the good sense that possesses us at high noon.
Any effort we make to channel our thoughts twists the energy, rebukes us with half-finished faces, sexless bodies.
We learn again that our minds are full of snares, knots, goblins.
The backward march of the dead, the bridges that end halfway and still hang in the air, those who failed to love us, those who irreparably harmed us, intentionally or not, even those we hurt badly and live on incapsulated in our regret.
The past thrives on a sleepless night, reduces it to the awesome, distorted essence of all we have met.
It was a night I would remember poignantly but not wish to repeat.
God bless us, everyone.
No Haiku For You 