When I think of all the nights
(like this) I have not slept
and wept in envy of those asleep
the panacea of counting sheep
resolves to craving lamb kabob
buffet style, plentiful and cheap

Artists say night evokes the muse
and that the creative juices flow
but infomercials and endless news
are the dull divinities that I know:
tacky wraiths ginning carrots to juice
and the living dead as talking heads

Peace is called the ascetic’s companion
(a more nostalgic term than warden or pest)
in arbitrary rule over its maniacal minion
who stole neither wine nor a moment’s rest;
my cohort smiles like a victor of chess
piling on silence with a mime’s finesse

I have reveries of an endless slumber
in a sleep-number bed under baritone snoring
while gladly taking on the character of lumber
after it is felled and offered for sawing;
Let wolves howl and pussies hiss in the alley
I shall be dreaming on a pastoral valley

What else, you ask, bequeaths insomnial Night?
Neither Cupid nor Vixen or sugarplum visions
those are the harvest of more riotous seasons
and Night is but a wintry season of the light;
This philanderer of dreams and ennobling supinity
bestows bloodshot eyes and a loathing quotidity!

And yet I would not trade its cortisolic stimulations
for all the money made or sleepy angels up in heaven
steroid, opiate, flavenoid – elixir vitae unparalleled;
Just now the Sun’s revealed in glowing fowl posteriors
spaced like random notes on the swaying line superior
But what concern is that of mine? Hell, it’s finally sack time!