Put to Sleep (poem)

Put to Sleep

See in his confusion the never-clean corner

Never touch the waste of thought ebbs

And pushed by other thoughts

No better than the last

Fear and reverie whirl here into scum ponds

He is feeling bad for someone

No, he feels sorry, envy drains the heart―

For himself…he feels sorry for himself

Put to sleep the consciousness that longs

Longs and long stretches of drowsiness

May never expand to clarity before the night contracts

A rare condition that may not exist

In two contiguous communities

There may be no heroes in this town nor there

Nor anywhere we know of

Scurry and battery of bagged food

Sugar and numbness

Too tired now for anything but banishment

No, I have never left you

Dear child of mine

The whisperer by the window

A man’s low voice, a woman’s sigh

Threatening signs that flash in an ignorant millisecond

The pall of night covers the mind’s will

To live beyond the hour

And then the pulsing brain is put to sleep

Put to Sleep

Find this poem in Mystery Plays

Entrée

(2016, Stephanie Foster)