​REVISITING INSOMNIA


4 am lost in the never 
land of chronic insomnia
a dark forest ravished by storms
where dreams go to perish
 
My mind hijacks my destiny
speaks in a foreign tongue
devours the silence like a sinkhole
Walks up and down my spine like
a gypsy tailor pushing a garment cart
down a long cobbled road
 
A sacrificial virgin burns in volcano ash
a Tijuana Jesus nailed to a plastic cross
winks at the twelve wise men making
a return trip to the Manager
after a shopping spree at Walmart’s
 
Poems swirl in my head like helicopter blades
drop me off at a graveyard where
a one-handed fortuneteller trades in
her crystal ball for a pack of tarot cards
 
My love returns from the Bermuda Triangle
in the disguise of a mermaid
 
There is no shelter from the storm
the river flows through North Beach into
the Café Trieste drowns one sleeping poet
and a burned out jazz musician
 
A political poet floats down to Spec’s Bar
with Mao’s little red book clutched in his hands
 
Pope Francis pleads for humility
God answers with a bolt of lightning
Jesus raises the stakes with rolling thunder
 
An army of red ants marches
backwards off a cliff
A bee colony drips honey between
he legs of a dairy queen
A haunted house coughs up
an angry ghost drunk on death

Dante gives up his seat in Hell
to Rosa Parks who recites
the Lord’s Prayer in Hebrew
to a honky Sheriff in Alabama
 
Saint Peter empties purgatory
turns sinners into saints
Van Gogh demands his ear back
 
A new born baby is sacrificed at the Louve
a French Mistress closes her legs in protest
the mirror splits in half mocks my existence
Satan recruits me
God mocks my counter offer

a whisper of sleep camps inside my eyeball
I surrender with a whimper drown in a series
of Hail Mary’s recited by a defrocked priest
surrounded by thirteen sexy nuns
dressed in see through habits