As a child, I rocked my crib while standing, and when trying to sleep, I have forever rocked. And I don't think I even ever had a cradle. Surely, though, my mother rocked me. This is a self-soothing (and hopefully other-soothing) hymn "to" insomnia. Sometimes the advice works; sometimes it doesn't. In performance, I get on the floor and demonstrate. I have tried to mirror with format. It is meant to be read slowly and rhythmically, as though it were a lullaby. If it puts you to sleep, that's good (I think).
BARREL
Awake for hours in the derisive night,
thoughts stewing like sludge
in the corner sewer --
find the position, the old and only one,
that frees the grip of wakefulness --
prostrate, knees drawn under,
elbows bent, ears with hands rammed,
head crammed into the pillowy down:
cushiony harbinger of rude unsleep
and diaphanous dream...
Now. Rock slowly, side to side,
like some abandoned barrel onan unseemly sea;
sway, a pendulum,
drowning, undrowned thing.
Overfull of mind and fetid air,
rock now, whole-bodied,
woo the insidious impostor
that ousts the wide-eyed terror
more egregiously feared
than the bidden tangle
of unconscious imagining. In the chaos of jangled bedclothes
like strewn trash
it is the rhythm that soothes,
the steady side-to-side
as long ago, in a cradle supine,
you were rocked by others.
Yes, drift as in that little lair
and let yourself leak;
drink the welcome waters in.
Parched be,
as for a final swaddling;
be swallowed
like some savory treat
the waters can keep.
Descend steep
to demulcent deeps.
There is only the rocking,
so drop below,
in time to some ancient
Adagio.
Still Living on my Feet is the follow up to Tichaona Chinyelu’s first book, In the Whirlwind, which was rooted in a sense of hard-hitting revolutionary black love. However, in this sophomore effort, Tichaona brings the revolutionary essence from deep
Each person is but a grain of sand resting beside the sea. This thought sets the tone for Jill Eisnaugle’s latest poetry collection, Beside Still Waters.
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(((HUGS))) and love, Karla.