Re: The Sleep.
You may like an old poem of mine, it may inspire you to rework this one:
The Grinding Sleep:
I lost a tooth last night asleep
in the grinding love of another dream.
I awoke in the early morning and
placed it beside my bed.
It was a molar, or part of one
the last part; and yeah, I wonder
why I don't feel the pain that others
would feel. It's as though I'm immune
to the tyranny of teeth.
There are two stumps now where
molars once were, which is funny because
I've brushed my teeth for the past ten years
every day thrice, in-between mouth washes and
toothpicking.
It seems unfair that one should suffer asleep
for his or her parents' lack of funds.
Braces of so many kinds could
have prevented all of this.
The problem, I've so many crevices.
Bony Convolutions where smoothness is right
like a victorian bosom, always
white and pressing.
The great thing is, of course, that they fall
out in slumber, when the process of decay
stands at the east flank in the morning sun.
Weak bones, weak teeth, weak lives
they seem to run in murders like crows
pining for worms and better things
that come up in the rain.
I bought a video microscope the other day
(so I say); it magnifies the smallest crease
in your finger to a seventeen inch high contrast
picture. The cracks in my fingers are crevices
black spots signalling my liver won't last so long.
The chewed skin at the side of my nails are mountains
with viral threads, microscopic, interrupting
a peaceful calamity of the skin.
But I wonder, I do so wonder why
I grind my teeth to shards in my sleep
'till stumps replace rocks and icebergs.
Do you think I'm nervous, so unconscious
wondering what has come of this?
Do you think I wonder
inept and weary
where I have come?
I had many wishes but
instead I grind my teeth and
in stead envelope
and chew myself
to and in
sleep.
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