sleep

It has been a while since I posted new poetry. So here is one I just composed while prepping tomorrow night's podcast. It is the lyric for a new piece of music by myself and the Gods of Love, entitled "sleep". We actually composed the music first, then I looped it and have been sitting here for half an hour as it suffocates me, invoking and evoking emotional resonances...and this is what emerged.

sleep

sleep
and let the silence signify
your release of the pain
the pain that stains
your day with sorrowed tomorrows
both rotten and misbegotten
defiled by the taste of vinegar
in a skewed worldview.

sleep
and let loose the crippling grip
you think you have to maintain
to make your way
up a ladder you imagined
as you were told a street of gold
was for you if you believed it
like tales of faeries.

sleep
remember an ember of dreams
fanned hot enough to burn
away the day
of a loneliness we would bless
with a sanctified acceptance
of the remorse'd course that pours
from the guilty pores.

sleep
so I may step into your bed
into your head from miles away
and lay with you
bleeding your weary tears to ease
the sacred ache of ancient need
I was born to bear from your heart
as penance for love.


William F. DeVault. all rights reserved.
The painting is "Woman Sleeping" by Tamara Lempicka (1935)