Ode to Nyquil

I really shouldn't take this stuff.

Yes! I am still here.

 

I am still here, inside . . .

Inside the cone of silence.

Inside the cone of

I-don’t-really-care-if-I’m-not-actually-doing-any-work.

I am still here.

I can still hear.

I am on the other side of this wall,

this glass partition,

this green genie in a child-proof bottle.

I am still here.

I am not child-proof.

I am not proof, child, and I have no idea

what you expect me to prove.

 

I am here, I am there, in a moment I’ll be everywhere,

except that blinking takes too much energy,

and in this state I will watch four hours of an infomercial

about floor steamers. For hours. Four hours!

In this state, I mutter, incoherent.

The nature of infinity, infinite sheep,

infinite sleep.

 

Infinite . . .

. . . sleep.

Come genie. Come! We bask, we speak, we sleep.

We sleep!

I, drinker of the genie, solemnly swear

I solemnly swear -

I will not drive under the influence.

I will not drive you to insanity with my infinite sheep.

 

Infinite sleep.

 

 

Author's Note

Written under the influence.

Reviews

[Emily Rose]

HA! I loved the wordplay; it was wonderful. The four-for thing was so clever, as was sheep-sleep! The metaphors were wonderful too, and once again the repetition of a refrain worked to your advantage. The comparsion to a genie in a nyquil bottle was amazing, too.

I'm going to have to disagree with Tessa, though: I liked the first half much better than the second because it was tighter and more coherent. Of course, coherence is obviously not the strong point of poems such as these, but for most of it I get the sense that you ARE, in fact, still there, and you are controlling your words just enough to keep the poem from slipping over the edge into pure incoherence. The end, I think, becomes rather incoherent and harder to follow and thus it seems to drag the poem out a little. I hadn't scrolled down the whole way when I was reading it and I thought that the poem ended after the first "infinite sleep." Personally, I think that this is a great place to end the poem, but then it continued. I though that the last stanza had nothing on the first three, so it seemed excessive. Sorry if it sounds harsh, but I think that you should cut that stanza out - it doesn't really bring any new ideas to the poem and rather than concluding it, it seems to defy conclusion, since you've already almost ended the poem once before with the same lines.

Great job with this - it was highly amusing and well put together!

[[untitled]]

honestly, have you not thought of cherry flavor? it is much better.

[Annie]

I like the voice coming through this... When I read the poem, it kinda came out in a "foggy" sort of sense if you understand what I'm saying. Almost a little sarcastic even... It's subtle, yet carries a slightly bitter undertone. Nice work.

[Clarisse Nanoit]

I love the whole thing!! :) I think, as Tessa said, the second half does flow better, but it kind of feels like it's meant to be that way... like you were fighting the drunken groove and then you just WENT with it. :) It was very fun to read, and quite relateable, as I myself have fought the infinite sheep (or is it sleep) while under the influence of NyQuil... :P Great piece!
KH

[Tessa]

I liked the whole thing, but more the last half. I think it flows better than the first half.

[Michael Handel]

I like this a lot. I like poems that make use of homonyms and such...and the flow of the entire thing was perfect...I could have sung it a-loud, if I were so inclined. This is a great poem, truly!

[Adam Chambers]

That's really cool! I like. Just a couple quick suggestions:
How about single spacing instead of double? And check out Robert Creeley's poems-- I am being heavily influenced by them the last couple days due to their succinct structure. He uses 2, 3, and 4 line stanzas that are fairly evenly broken up in terms of syllables and kind of run one into the other. I think this one of yours would work fairly well in a structural style similar to that. Here is an example of what I'm talking about:


I am on the other side of this
wall this glass partition this
green genie in a child-proof
bottle I am still here I am not

child-proof I am not proof, child
and I have no idea
what you expect me to
prove
ETC....

(Just one possible structural change-- play around with stuff like that and see what happens... if you do change it up, send it back to me as a read request, I'd like to check out what you did! : )

Hope this helps!
Sincerely,
Adam