Awake

Pants, dark in my closet, hang open by the waist;

A rotting pirate swings on harbor gallows.

Frail sunlight shows the rest, condemned, who wait their turn

I am a scarf, bright blue; the drab remainder

by all eyes left behind.

My burrow, my cell; dressed by darkness I leave

Deep silence guards the hall. Hinge creak and latch click

echo in the dark. By memory I see

to the switch. Click. All nature rushes at me

A charging bull against a man blind and deaf

my unready senses gored

My eyes groan open; the colored world solid now

It bases purple bruises on my retinas

I'd rather not see my face as I wash it.

A pulse-jet siren, a mile, a room away

announces I'm up early.

I stumbling-charge, and though my ears drip blood, I

Bash this foe to silence.

Then into the shower, where water so hot

it burns the nerves until, cleansed, I feel nothing,

but the pounding pressure while the ocean falls,

Then dry cotton shrouds all touch

By tinge of columbian dark, my bold nose

takes its turn, and “o'er the top” seeks destruction.

Then's rewarded, and the cup too hot to hold,

it hardly too hot to drink.

Bathed in electric glare, and serenaded

by thunderous humming of many hidden fans.

All senses dazed, conquered or dead entirely,

Each fell, trireme to vortex, by the Siren

of lazy expectedness.