Poem

Fuzzy Red digits
The brain desperately clings to a dream
But it slips away into Freud’s Library

Consciousness
Invades the body slowly
Starting with the mind
Then alerting the eyes
But pausing at the arm
Void of blood
It is a dead log that must be roused
Painfully

Cool air floods the nostrils
Filling them with the stale air of the room
The body struggles up placing an elbow
Into a cool wet pool of drool

First one foot
Then the other
Makes contact with yesterdays dirty cloths
As each toe probes the articles
A coarse muscle rubs itself around the mouth
Riding itself of the chalky film it’s collected

Suddenly the sleeping arm is attacked
By thousands of prickly pears, cactus needles, porcupine quills, and bumble bee stingers
The arm is given a hearty shake, which only intensifies its pain
So it is left to scream as it angrily awakes

Then the body stands with a chorus of creaks and snaps
Each joint rendering a complaint
Turning off the steady HUUUUMMMM of the fan
Revealing the sound of birds in the dead pine
Which scratches the window with only a gust

But the curtain stays closed
The eyes don’t wish to see the birds
The eyes don’t desire the colorful light of the morning sun
The eyes enjoy the dark, the uncertainty



Sight is overrated as a sense
Taken for granted
The body prefers to use its other senses for navigation
The ones tuned out by the contracting lenses