I’m coasting through my life,
Many chances unseen,
Perfection or failure–
I know nothing between.

I’m afraid to attempt,
Any new kind of feat,
For risk of the unknown,
Leaves my goals incomplete.

Before an honest chance,
I avoid and delay,
Then I self-sabotage,
Every step of the way.

And I’ll only engage,
If I’m sure I’ll succeed,
Never taking a chance,
So, my win’s guaranteed.

This way I’m protected,
But, I don’t dare to dream–
For I’m broadly inept,
With a low self esteem.

Of course, I’m missing out,
On any real progress,
For this fear of failure,
Never leads to success.

I don't chase sleep
Sleep doesn't chase me,
Doesn't even half-two;
Sleep has/is/will have
Non-Existed since before
My body joined the Clock-
Work Greyness that is
(Time)
Clicking away to E
Turn It E, And E; It:
Returning back to...
Mysteries are born, die,
Re-emerge, when our
Senses draw in, rescued
From the Wake of the
Ship that Sleep is

(Some Pronoun)
Has to Pretend to Sleep
The conscious Abstract
Of being slightly more
Vulnerable than when
We were unremembered
Babies, crawlers, toddling the
Dimly-Perceived Tightrope
When we first begin to remember
Night Horse-Mares
Tromping and galloping
Leaving woven dreamprints
To keep our Id from forgetting
To tell us to breathe, water, and feed
Whatever the Ego and Superego
Allow/Disallow

Time is there, in sleep, but
Not of the clockwork count-
Down that is carnal fleshly
Life resetting in the same way the
Terminator says
"I won't be back, I won't leave,
I am always here," like
Past grudgingly releasing
Its soft, sharp claws, Fading,
Fading twilight into the ever-
Wide arms of darkness

Bad dreams, good dreams,
Balancing our warring survivalist
Self with the calm wakefulness
When all three the fulcrum
Of our mind arriving Ten
Minutes before the Two Others

Sleep gives way from the
Inert Vulnerable
To the Alert Unvulnerable;
Sleep is to Consciousness
As Death is to Life

I hear the clanking of the gears and ropes
As the curtain starts its slow descent.
I’m rushing to get all my speeches in-
I thought the final scene would go on longer.

But I somehow forgot my lines, the prompter was asleep,
And I tripped across the brace cleats on my entrance
The apron edge is way too close.  I feel lightheaded.
I can see my understudy waiting in the wings.

I thought that I could play my role with some elan
For the entire duration of the local run
But seven shows with matinees to total nine
Have strained my voice and dulled my ears

So I can’t hit the high notes any more.
I know the lyrics and the tunes-
I play them in my sleep instead of waking up
But nonetheless I miss my cues and every note is flat.

The audience is unaware.  They haven’t read the book.
They cannot know the words left out, the blocking gone awry,
My struggle as I patch it up and try to hide
Behind my past reviews - when everything I did was right.

Tassels shimmy on the bottom of the velvet drape
As it slips down behind  me - out in front when I should be in back.
If only I could juggle - no one would suspect
That this will be my final curtain call and I have got it wrong.