Morning Daze in a Basement Bed

You wake up tired with those electric stings

when that fat sun rises and the morning brings

that burning glare in through the screen—

Groping your eyes for the lifeline high

you’re still coping on your dream hill scene

with the others sitting in that field’s sunshine—

“Come on down!”

Now you’re sluggish against the morning light

in your nested womb room without sight,

scratching your sore eyes loose on the sheets.

You lie in them counting the ceiling beats

while building yourself an armadillo shell

around the grease upon your pillow

underground.

Now you’re spaced taking a leak and defaced

in the Sunday haste of the clothesline waste—

But you’ve only seen this morning light

when you fail to drift to sleep by night

and you wake to a life not what it seems—

as if the others calling came not of dreams

but normal sound.

In this big shaving cream and shower scene

a steam routine this morning went clean

and bent on the sink a mirror gleam—

You woke up too early from the dream

so movements seem like a swim team

for the others are still in the bloodstream

drain pipe bound.

Today’s the day to make the past minutes last

before the waking life leaves you far too fast—

before you’ll be the one caught breathing

just to waste more days in the heave,

or before you start regretting to leave,

first catch the drugs—you’re dripping wet

in a sunlit crown.

Your toast is ready with the tart orange juice

so ignore the silence and fall in loose

before you go back to that pasture green

where the sunlight’s always seen—

where those old time others stand eye-ballin’

and one demands and then starts callin’:

“Come on down!”

So you stagger around in your underwear

with an eye half open and an itchy ear

and somewhere you hear of dignity but

here it ain't found.

NEXT

--Porter Daryl's Poems