Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


AWAKE by JAMES HARRISON

Poet Analysis

First Line: LIMP WITH NIGHT FEARS: HELLEBORE, WOLFSBANE
Last Line: SECTIONS FOR BURNING.
Subject(s): DESPAIR; FEAR; INSOMNIA; SLEEPLESSNESS;

Limp with night fears: hellebore, wolfsbane,
Marlowe is daggered, fire, volts, African vipers,
the grizzly the horses sensed, the rattlesnake
by the mailbox -- how he struck at thrown rocks,
black water, framed by police, wanton wife,
I'm a bad poet broke and broken at thirty-two,
a renter, shot by mistake, airplanes and trains,
half-mast hard-ons, a poisoned earth, sun will
go out, car break down in a blizzard,
my animals die, fistfights, alcohol, caskets,
the hammerhead gliding under the boat near
Loggerhead Key, my soul, my heart, my brain,
my life so interminably struck with an ax
as wet wood splints bluntly, mauled into
sections for burning.



Home: PoetryExplorer.net