NIGHTS IN THE ALL-CONQUERING MEDIUM Poem by Ron Winkler

for Jeffrey McDaniel
when we can't sleep we count
the emergency vehicles cutting off the ambulances
we're positioned in.

when we can't sleep we glow
as if the dark were light.

when we can't sleep we count the ones
who can't sleep.

when we can't sleep we stand up to flesh out
and cultivate this state of being
into perhaps hollow-eyed Heideggerism.

when we can't sleep we monitor
the yawning local police of our yawning bodies by the reading of their
yawn-inspiring internal memos and standing orders.

when we can't sleep we recite the two three
four lines of the two three poems that we know.

when we can't sleep we're little Paddleship Potemkins.