"shuteye" poems
i.
Society keepeth their amour' in a box
Hidden, unrevealed, secretive, locked;
Me and mine Jane, shalt be open as a flame,
As on mine knee's I peck upon her toe's;
Again and again.
ii.
In the midday hour's when her back and neck get's sore
Mine fingertip's shalt caresseth her epidermis;
With sultry emollient, from her head to her feet.
I rubbeth in deep, as tis she shalt falleth asleep
As the best massage she's ever hadst,
Put's her into a trance in mine hold:
In peace she slumbereth,
Into a romantic kingdom
Stacked with ourn affection's gold.
iii.
Over an hour-plus thirty minute's,
Mine sweaty Palm's art tender;
Though it was all worth it
To mine queen mine soul surrendered;
Entering in her shuteye, I entered in locking ourn leg's, head's, arm's: closely cuddling-pillow's feathered.
Here at this moment, nothing else in the world mattered.
©Brandon Nagley
©Earl Jane Nagley dedication ( Filipino rose)
©Lonesome poet's poetry
Nov 7, 2015
Nov 7, 2015 at 8:00 PM UTC
When I was younger
I slept in the top bunk
over my older brother
- Pretty soon we’re all going to die -
he was fond of saying
while we listened to Credence
Clearwater Revival on an old turntable
with a penny he taped to the arm
to make it sound like a $100
Pretty soon he got me saying the same
words, like moon, mosquitos and darkness
were in his ear, he’d have dreams of
naked women washing his feet
and sparrows looking out of his eyes
He hollered at old man death
when he was wanting some shuteye
- Nobody on earth is like me -
he’d wake up shouting not meaning
to disturb my sleep
He said - I am the white piano
they threw off the bridge -
- the snake bed and the shade tree -
- I am something, yes-sir-eee -
- I’m something not everybody wants
to believe - he’d say sipping on whiskey
bought from a woman up the holler
He told death to - kiss his white *** -
then holler at me to get out of bed
and go trim the grass around the stone
angels planted up in the high pasture.
Dec 1, 2018
Dec 1, 2018 at 10:21 PM UTC
i’m sitting in my empty room
where dreams run dry
i’m tossing in my empty room
so desperate for shuteye
i sit here in my room so cold
with heat turned on
by the glowing moon
i’ve seen this moon too many now
i often think we’re friends, oh wow!
but musn’t i be dumb to think
or ponder what my new friend speaks
or does he speak
for he’s the moon
he speaks to me
a silent tune.
Sep 23, 2024
Sep 23, 2024 at 9:49 PM UTC
Nothing more intimate than sleep
wake before dawn, go downtown
prepare for tomorrow, come home from work late.
Most cities prosper undisturbed
sleeping peacefully
while the tide goes out.
Are we asleep or are we dancing,
surrounded by buildings,
a primitive fertility dance in the forest?
Sleeping in my clothes,
sleeping in my underwear,
two dead leaves, then a breeze!
Fall asleep by the river,
in front of tv,
soon I will know who I am.
In the last days you may be found sleeping in the laundry mornings,
or sitting in the holy spot
gazing at a crescent moon.
Get up early but gotta nap,
winter afternoons or summer heat
Thanatopsis, Big Comfy Couch.
Sleep in the bed next to your wife
that way when life ends
someone misses you.
That sounds harsh but we’re matter of fact
about the fact of death.
Death is most of all like sleep.
Doctor, engineer, lawyer, soldier,
writer, poet, that’s the pecking order,
get some sleep, get over it.
Not the kind of gal who’ll have *** twice
on the first date. When that happens
marriage, babies, graduations, tragedies, sleep.
Headache, surgery, through it all
there’s sleep, a haven, heaven, hovel, cave, raven,
a place to be with eyes wide open.
Don’t have a hissy fit
or case of colon cancer, get 8 hours
shuteye in contiguous array.
If not, listen to a TED talk, they like explaining things
Selected Shorts solves insomnia,
The Moth Hour, the peaceful father, mother.
Sweet pleasing Sleep!
in Hades
where the lights are always blue, gentian actually.
Every third thought doesn’t have to be about death.
Sleep together, get laid.
Sleep. How memories are made.
Sleep. In the palm at the end of the mind or on another plane.
Oct 4, 2020
Oct 4, 2020 at 9:42 AM UTC
Everyone is waiting like
angry Buddhists
for the washrooms
to become vacant again.
I'm waiting for
my mind to be vacant
impatiently, like an angry
bodhisattva,
so I can get some
******* shuteye.
Mar 23, 2013
Mar 23, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
I don’t mind, not at all,
just place your head on me,
let yourself become
immersed in my comfy haven.
Every night I am yours
you are mine, a relationship
that has lasted many years.
Many more to follow.
We never talk, we just lie
enveloped in darkness.
I care more than you can know.
I will never leave,
cheat on you when I have had enough.
Do with me what you like, turn me over,
drool over me, move me into
whatever position you fancy.
But then you leave me. I become
cold and alone once again.
Not to worry though, because I know
you'll return when you need me.
Mar 7, 2012
Mar 7, 2012 at 10:29 AM UTC
SHUTEYE
IN THE LAND
OF THE SACRED
COMMONER
& other poems
110 pages, 7.00
self published and available today on Lulu
(book preview on site is book entire)
~
some poems, from:
~
{untitled}
the robot is a ******
the baby
it goes
from baby
to baby
with no
message.
-
I want your work to matter.
~
{keep}
the laziness animals have, that kind of panicked longing…
and brevity, the faith
of insects
-
my shadow, of course, afraid of its borrowed blood
-
that barn
in the middle of nowhere’s haunted eyesight
-
the invisible
after-hours
birth, and the woman
who keeps the baby
despite
its perfection
-
this quiet in the redneck’s
library
of forgiveness, this thunder…
-
the agony of the boomerang’s maker
~
******
the cigarette
the worrier’s
flashlight
the past
a widow…
deserted childhood, electric eel.
if poor
put mouth
where mouth
is
~
{untitled}
the baby contorts as if it might become a chair
its mother is saying
wind
I will pray
for you
-
its father is fashioning
from some god’s
idea
of a stripper
pole
a dollhouse
totem
-
the baby itself is nonsense
its head
bruised
by a rattle
would brain
a parrot
Jun 9, 2016
Jun 9, 2016 at 1:13 PM UTC
30% off all print books on Lulu thru the 24th with coupon code of LULU30
some of mine are there, including:
~ shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner [& other poems]
~ MOON tattoo
~
poems, from:
[ally]
the robotic jaw
lifting otherness
from a hole
in a body cast
no litter
of bewitched
kittens, no wild
crop
of soundlings
angry
at the wrong
life
~
[tocsin]
the singlemost mother has heard of a skin cream can turn one into darkness.
a bar of soap that reads palms…
-
on display for the poker face of birth, you are the vision footage dies for.
-
you have this father
leaves
no stone
unseen
this brother
haunted
by surplus
aftermath…
-
before it was an ear, it was where
she scrubbed
~
[On contact]
hold kitten
like a rifle. pop
a paper sack
at your father’s
ear. ah, your father
who was made to kneel
for two
maybe three
things
(god, shrapnel) a flying saucer
from the wreckage of his church
~
[purlieu]
a bruise, a school
of fish. a caterpillar
crossing
the floor
of hell. a thought
sick
to a son’s
stomach, a winter
glove
in spider’s
nightmare.
~
[notes for eggshell]
beneath the tethered astronaut of his dream
the impossible boy
misses
something small
the human ear, its recent
brush
with whale
~
[domain] for Katherine Osborne
falsehoods
I was sure
to say
to a horse, things like
god is sending
his middle
child
to collect
a drop
of my daughter’s
blood, or
it’s a sin
to be
1989, things I felt
I owed
the horse, that were
horse-like
in their stillness, that went
nowhere
when nowhere
was
come fly
or flat
earth
the dark’s
*****
Jul 19, 2016
Jul 19, 2016 at 9:51 AM UTC
(-)
poetry and god share the same quick death.
I’m on what you’re on;
the eighth day of the world.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 1:46 PM UTC
11/04/14
Brought screaming into a blinding world,
WE CRY
From nothing, Into a painful life we are hurled.
WE GET BY
Dancing through the days of light,
WE FLY
Sleeping through the darkness of night.
WE SIGH
Each moment passing in the blink of an eye.
WE TRY
We learn to live, love, learn, and lie.
WE LIE
Seeking that one thing to make us whole,
WE DEFY
Trying to find our destined roles.
WE MULTIPLY
Not once able to stop the cycle,
WE JUSTIFY
Fighting a lifelong battle.
WE CRUCIFY
Suddenly we reach our final moments,
WE RECTIFY
With no time left, we reminisce.
WE DIGNIFY
With one last breath,
We SHUTEYE
We are lost unto death.
WE DIE
©
Nov 11, 2014
Nov 11, 2014 at 1:23 PM UTC
(-)
it’s all in your head. the newborn we had on a mountaintop. the word it knew from memory. its hand that stuck to everything but the dog our dog ate. the cold our dog died from. the tent we called aquarium. that we filled with diapers. that was never full.
Mar 27, 2016
Mar 27, 2016 at 11:47 PM UTC
(-)
existence is the wrong inquiry. I was destroyed by an angel
for having
taste buds.
a pinkness has always gone on without me.
Mar 28, 2016
Mar 28, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
20% off all print books at Lulu today with coupon code of LULU20
/ from [shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner]
~
[untitled]
hell is a book.
she reads it
in a room
that’s alive.
attic or no, I want
to miss
my father.
~
[untitled]
she reaches into the same hat for the rabbit he’s made disappear.
I sleep and the dark takes me for the bone
lightning
straightens.
~
[entries for giants]
not a thing born
nor a thing
howled at
no
you are not
again
these things
the baby
it continues
to purple itself
where it can
it crawls, but is mostly stunned
by its own
vocabulary
the dog has the tongue of a cat
this is new
~
[the exact]
father became the man his possession foreshadowed. mom had a purse full of spoons. brother bathed any form quiet enough to make the kitchen sink. I began to believe. I began to hear in the rock
the thorn
it spoke for. over the nest of a bird,
the nothing to eat.
~
/ from [MOON tattoo]
~
[catastrophe]
I am differently
afraid
of each
cigarette
-
thematically, father hopes
to operate
on a clown
-
compared
to his
my hunger
is having
a flashback
-
wheelchair, oh
to its dog
door
bliss
~
[moon tattoo]
birth, or god’s
way
of erasing
our memory…
this
more than you
will hurt
my neighbor’s
doll
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 12:28 PM UTC
from [shuteye in the land of the sacred commoner]
~
it’s all in your head. the newborn we had on a mountaintop. the word it knew from memory. its hand that stuck to everything but the dog our dog ate. the cold our dog died from. the tent we called aquarium. that we filled with diapers. that was never full.
~
when asked
I say
I see
on the floor
of a mudhut
a *** toy
having
a seizure.
I kiss the feet
you’re the future
of.
~
church of intermission. church of the rolled-away church my fever follows. church of it ain’t a baby until it spits. church of the lawnmower left running. of the space you give the grieving horse. church of you when you die in my sleep. of musical suicides. church of the disinfected high chair. of the false bruise. of how to become a balloon in the church of touch.
~
and we touch to abridge doom in the bed of a headless man. and we struggle to hear a father verbatim. and we ask in a fierce wind a phone booth to please be a fireplace. and a starfish consoles a handprint.
~
(all print books on Lulu are 25% off thru July 11th with coupon code of LULU25)
Jul 6, 2016
Jul 6, 2016 at 11:29 AM UTC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNJXt4Gn0ZA
May 16, 2016
May 16, 2016 at 8:10 AM UTC