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Sleep

General Poetry - post, comment, review, critique
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Colm Roe
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Joined: Sun Jan 07, 2018 12:45 am

Sleep

Post by Colm Roe » Mon Jan 04, 2021 7:52 pm

Sleep
A small, elusive nut
best opened with a feather.

Impatient nights
hammer skin and pulp
in a rage to claim it.

I'm calloused by my stupidity,
still numb
from previous assaults.

It's there,
this master or apprentice of  Dolus,
waiting to be claimed.
The music of it taunts,
the nature of it slips.

I am the cat 
who knows where happiness is,
but can't resist
the tail. 

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Gyppo
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Location: UK

Re: Sleep

Post by Gyppo » Tue Jan 05, 2021 4:56 am

Colm,

That last verse is a poem in its own right.  Both cryptic and explicit.  As soon as I read  it I felt its claws locking into my memory.

Maybe all poets are cats.  Chasing the flickering everyday interests of life, or sat in a quiet sunlit corner pondering the deeper mysteries.  Slipping between the two adjacent worlds like a time-traveller.

Gyppo
I've been writing ever since I realised I could.  Storytelling since I started talking.  Poetry however comes and goes  ;-)

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Tracy Mitchell
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Re: Sleep

Post by Tracy Mitchell » Tue Jan 05, 2021 7:58 am

Colm -- wonderful poem. I especially liked S.1-3, the brevity and briskness in service to your theme-- no pussyfooting. :) And I am mightily taken by the last S. as well.

Gyppo - interesting comment. I saw this recently:

George Keithley noted that the word image in ancient Syrian means both icon and angel. An image, Keithley suggested, is like an angel -- a messenger moving between the physical world and the divine. Through images we enter the imagination -- a doorway to the divine. Images can appear as messages from the unconscious, especially in dreams and daydreams, but also in the real world, in everyday life -- if we are open to them.

indar
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Re: Sleep

Post by indar » Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:26 am

Both the opening and closing lines are stunning--I mean sleep as "a nut opened with a feather"---I know those nights, the body as "skin and pulp". Fabulous!

I believe your writing has taken a quantum leap over the last couple of years, I'm in awe (however I still remember "owl boy" with great fondness).

And Tracy, that quote you responded with is wonderful as well.

Tim J Brennan

Re: Sleep

Post by Tim J Brennan » Tue Jan 05, 2021 9:42 am

....the poem is S1, S4, S5 for me. Wonderful stuff. Original. S2 & S3 I've heard before. Title could use something also. There are a billion "Sleep" poems.  

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Colm Roe
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Re: Sleep

Post by Colm Roe » Tue Jan 05, 2021 6:33 pm

Thank you all for your generous comments  :D
Thankfully I don't suffer from an inability to fall asleep quickly, even when I go to bed relatively early without beer. But I can feel for anyone who struggles to sleep. And so far my bladder is behaving, so my sleep isn't even broken. 
The last S is based on a children's story. A conversation between a kitten and a cat. The kitten knows that happiness is in her tail, so she constantly chases it. The cat tells the kitten that he too discovered the source of all happiness is in their tails, and he too could never catch it. Eventually he realised that the less obsessed he became about catching his tail, the happier he became. And happiness just followed him around (wagging) wherever he went.
I thought that tied in well with chasing sleep.
 

Matty11
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Re: Sleep

Post by Matty11 » Sun Jan 17, 2021 12:51 pm

Cherry-picking Colm, but S1 and S5 had the resonance and impact for me, and could exist as separate poems. I like the story behind S5.

cheers

phil

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Colm Roe
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Re: Sleep

Post by Colm Roe » Sun Jan 17, 2021 6:46 pm

Thanks Phil, glad you enjoyed those two. When I read a few people specifically mention certain stanzas I know which other ones to work on or lose  :)

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