Ode to Awakening from Sleep

It’s a strange place in here

Where it’s definitely dark

But there’s nothing you can’t see

And your changed perspective

Distorts the world

Fleeting thoughts that move like ghosts

No more substantial than dust in your consciousness

Suddenly lurch like monsters

Momentarily huge, solid, eating the world

Sometimes fading in the very same instant

That adrenaline floods your veins

Like an electric jolt rousing you back to life

Pulling you abruptly through the veil of illusion

Like snowflakes melting on a hot plate

Like vinegar hitting an eyeball

But sometimes, they don’t quite fade away

Sometimes they stay, to dance awhile in daylight

Fleeting, floating wraiths,

Ebbing in and out of your waking world

Puncturing your holy silence, your soothing darkness

Your warm, reflective, grey fuzz

Swooping from the shadows

To feed on your tranquility

They are both here, and already passed

But you always feel the wake they tow.

The place inside your mind

Is a real place, for you,

But it is not your own…

Reviews

[Poeticadia]

You have a wonderful way of recreating an experience so elegantly and perfectly with your words. This is just how awakening is... the nebulous 'floating wraiths' that just hang in the air confusing us with their apparent realness, until we wake fully and leave it all behind as if it were not our own to keep.

[roy mccarthy]

good write,
i'm def a fan of your work,
but....are all your poems odes?

[Kenneth The Poet]

I wish I had this feeling more often.

[Moflo]

I love the final line of this piece. Very vivid capturing of the confusing moment we all have in common the second we awake. Great write, great imagery, reminded me of Wallace Stevens a little. Good job!