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                                        First Edition:

Some intriguing ideas about two of life’s most significant mysteries.

“Big Questions, Little Sleep” is a poetry collection exploring questions surrounding time and death. Written during bouts of nightly insomnia, these poems are written with a gentle tug at the heartstrings. Some are personal in nature, but have a strong universal appeal. Written with beauty and soul, each poem asks more than it answers. Each invites you to join the ranks of those who harbor sleepless nights as they contemplate the ever deeper layers of each poem.

SECOND EDITION:

In her dedication, Poet Linda Imbler quotes Anton Chekhov, “The role of the artist is to ask questions, not to answer them.” These are intriguing words meant to reflect intriguing poetry.

The second edition of Big Questions, Little Sleep contains 143 poems. Also included is a lovely foreword penned by the distinguished Indian author Dr. Santosh Bakaya (Ballad of Bapu, Only In Darkness Can You See The Stars-Martin Luther King, Jr, Flights From My Terrace.) “Big Questions, Little Sleep” is a poetry collection exploring questions and some intriguing ideas about two of life’s most significant mysteries: time and death. Written during bouts of nightly insomnia, these poems are written with a gentle tug at the heartstrings. Some are personal in nature, but have a strong universal appeal. Written with beauty and soul, each poem, conceived with its own unique perspective, asks more than it answers. Each invites you, the reader, to join the ranks of those who harbor sleepless nights as you contemplate the ever deepening layers of each poem.

 

Thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart

for publishing my three poems in the May issue.

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Shake Me True Blue

 Aren’t we lucky

I was the one

to get a dose

of all you’ve said

so many times before?

I want to trust your heart,

stick by you,

whatever you do.

You, depending on me

to watch your back.

You really must decide.

One false move

can put us back,

square one looming.

Let your hope be reborn

at dawn or midnight.

Justice is coming,

you need only confide.

I’ll lead you to somewhere great.

Scan the heavens,

keep looking,

you will discover me.

I have a name.

It is loyalty.

The Hung Clock

 Within the openness of midnight,

this time canonized as most important,

where the tract of the sky

is close to the color of pitch-blend.

Above the bookshelf, 

upon a hanger,

at an easy angle for viewing,

is displayed the front of this clock. 

A fatherly sage watchdog,

within this room, 

in the artificial light, 

within the hothouse atmosphere,

it serves as the manager 

of echoing cathedral sounds.

After each windup,

it chooses the sound,

noise or song.

 The higher pitched ding-dong 

from any woodwind,

the tenor end of a pipe organ,

the comfortable sound of  

the trumpeter of a ship’s horn.

And in syncopation with its voice,

a couple dancing through a minuet,

other small figures

riding atop a carousel of horses.

As early morning nears,

it chimes hourly

in anticipation of 

each new day’s promise.

Teddy Bear

 

A handcrafted silver teddy bear,

with a boo-boo band-aid on his thumb.

It’s unfortunate anyone

could have hatred for this image.

Don’t confuse him with a wolverine.

Henceforth, the carpenter,

by virtue of catechism,

will leave him with an epitaph to guide,

anticipating winged aborted stragglers,

tentative,

not familiar with where they are going,

and too scared to ask.

 

HAPPY WORLD BEE DAY!

 

At The End Of The World

The crushing knights wore iron fabric,

and sat upon high stallions with clicking lips.

They rode upon torn ships

on a sea of confusion.

They steered their sinking, marbled ferries into oblivion,

this army with no weapons.

They will forever be dead in dreams,

and will convey no more ancient religions.

They left cathedral shells,

spoils of an immense war.

Their absurd heresy,

their breaches recommending funereal forecasts,

now trapped in a web of obscurity.

The ewe withstood the ram,

and the sentient rot

of insurrection and darkness

eventually dissipated.

All that remains is

an intrepid philosopher,

wielding a commonsense impulse, 

standing on an aging banner,

at this,

the end of the world.

 

The real question is not whether life exists after death. The real question is whether you are alive before death.

Anonymous

Covet

They are selfish and they covet that which 

is beyond their reach within their own world 

of desire: fellowship, heart-felt 

and sought after. 

It has long been their fervent wish, this strong 

need that has never come to pass.  To hear

what those now estranged have to say 

and to make themselves understood. 

They do not communicate and share their equal visions: 

Not among their own kind nor each group with 

the other side, still and tacit, 

both large crowds remain,  each in great fear of 

what surrounds, living flesh, or ghosts that haunt dreams 

planning a desperate grab.

For the living and the dead compete 

but should they concur? There will come a time, 

if each bloc wishes to survive,

an unchained meeting of the minds, detente

must take place and all competition must end. 

Until then each is enslaved by the other.