The First to Fall into Sleep

A freight train bellowed from faraway
over tatters of freezing sunset.
Home and cars in this perplexing valley
have become grounded reminders of stars.

Let me be the first to fall into sleep
under linen November bedclothes,
for I have seen too much today
to hope to gaze into livid evening.

Each century is oppressively chimerical;
and gaudiness is mistaken for radiance.
I am a son among a million bewildered sons
who haunt quiet, productive wastelands.

Let me be the first to fall into sleep
for I have seen too much today.

"from a nihilistic view of epochal change... a search for context"

Marc Awodey
Burlington, VT, USA