What Tortured Worlds

Betray my sleeping eyes

Photo by Margit Bantowsky on Unsplash

That thrusts my body into day.

Go. Stay Away —

Those nameless worries
will not yield their insights.
They are the body’s workings.

Remember you
of work that awaits.

And so arise
stumble into morning.
See dawn’s lips alight the sky.
Pushing night’s shadows
into puddles on the floor.

Untangle your dread
let it lay fallow
in fields of untilled dreams.

You have work to do.

Scrape old paint
let their chips fly.
Sweep up the remnants
that feather the deck.

Work relieves the mind
from sorrow left behind.
Bag it up with the brittle leaves’
growth of last year’s season.

And what of play
Those fleeting visions
framed and glittering?