Again, this book continues to inspire me, over and over. I first posted this blog post back in, December 2018 and then reblogged it again in, August 2020. Today I’ve added a little poem to it, from this book, as I feel it applies to what many of us have experienced during this pandemic.

A poem by American Poet, Weldon Kees,

” If this room is our world, then let

This world be damned. Open this roof

For one last monstrous flood

To sweep away this floor, these chairs,

This bed that takes me to no sleep.

Under the black sky of our circumstance,

Mumbling of wet barometers, I stare

At citied dust that soils the glass

While thunder perishes. The heroes perish

Miles from here. Their blood runs heavy in

the grass,

Sweet, restless, clotted, sickening,

Runs to the rivers and the seas, the seas

That are the source of that devouring flood

That I await, that I must perish by. “

I’ve had many a night duking it out with my bed. Insomnia is a problem for many of us, especially creatives. Often, I turn to the ‘tried and true’ book for calming my mind and seducing me to slumber. The blue light from my iPhone keeps me awake, so I prefer to go back to basics with an old-fashioned book.

Poetry is a great choice for perusing, as our minds are most creative in the wee hours.

I have several poetry books to choose from, however, this is one of my favorites: Acquainted with The Night, Insomnia poems.

Edited by Lisa Russ Spaar and published by Columbia University Press

This is a fine collection of some sweet-little-gems, by some FANTASTIC Poets. Some of them well-known and some a bit more obscure (well, at least to mwah)

Inspired by this little book, I penned this poem in the throes of my sleepless agony one night, or shall I say one morning!

Insomnia

My heart is racing

tap, tap, tapping on the moon

this night is a bore

the quiet stillness

I abhor

forget the blinds

up in the sky, pull-

pull them down

around, around

silly night, you cannot serenade me

seducing me into your spell

I fell-

I fell into my mind

to forget to sleep in time, not mine.

Forever, ’til the end

only this silliness

to contend

around, around

forever and more

the quiet stillness

I abhor.

©Jay Mora-Shihadeh

Here’s a list of some of the Poets who reside under the covers of this sweet little book.

1. Elizabeth Bishop
2. Joyce Carol Oates
3. Dana Gioia
4. Charles Simic
5. William Shakespeare
6. Umberto Saba
7. King Tran Thai-Tong
8. Emily Dickinson
9. Robert Frost
10. Walt Whitman