Most people go to sleep at night.
My insomnia screams like a leaf-blower
of blinding blizzard hiding in the Siberian
cupboard’s rattling snowplow. It grabs
my keys then races along the freeway
in a retro shoot ‘um up Western then
shouts a loud bugaloo down Broadway
using lip-liner sirens. It’s made of steel
tacks mixed in the nine inch nails and
rattles every ordinary tin roof scattering
fluffy pillow feathers. It has no smitten
eye piece but a starry sledge hammer
of acid rock amplifier plugged into my
tumbling dice. And when it really gets
angry it smashes my glasses of warm
milk against the four-poster bed tsunami
over and over again until I’m forced to
get up from the lazy-boy recliner and
stagger to the bathroom mirror where
a face stares back at me with eyes
that dangle down from their dark circled
sockets like earrings the shape of kiwi fruit.
About Maurice Oliver
