I'm Only Sleeping

poetry

I’m Only Sleeping

The poet writes
Before you can sleep
you have to pretend
you’re sleeping first.

Just as the boys are flapping
their limbs in an Oscar bid
before rolling to a full stop
from blasts of water shots
to the groin, head and heart.

Not to be undone, the terrier Jack
flops in the mud on his back
his four legs pointing to the sky.
Gilligan the cat rolls one eye.

Stop that now! Harold yells
They open eyes and giggle
Oh Daddy, Daddy they say
Oh Daddy, it’s just play.

Maybe it’s too late for them, for us
having conjured up death enough
to fill the craters of many a universe.
But how grand this world Daddy-O
where imagining makes it so.

We’re teenagers in love then and now.
The world is a scream and shout.
Our hormones louder than the band
our music raging through the ages.
Poor Shea Stadium can’t contain it.

And we’re all John Lennon.
We’re all George Harrison.
Not dead or gone, just dreaming
of a sun that comes
when we call it.