Sleep Poems | Poemist

Popular Sleep Poems

The Day Lady Died

by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets

......

Disabled

by Wilfred Owen

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-

......

A Red Palm

by Gary Soto

You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.

That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair

......

Fern Hill

by Dylan Thomas

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

......

Strange Meeting

by Wilfred Owen

It seemed that out of the battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which Titanic wars had groined.
Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
Then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
And by his smile, I knew that sullen hall;
By his dead smile I knew we stood in Hell.

......

Recent Sleep Poems

Mulberries and Butterflies

by Ghairo Daniels

MULBERRY TREES AND BUTTERFLIES

Don’t go back to heavy sleep
dwell in wakefulness
of I AM THAT I AM
here mulberries and butterflies
beckon across filtered fences
which you can comely climb
for a bountiful bestowing
pick, a Sunday spongy

......

Yesterday in a Moment

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

Soon dawn at plum morn
though pearly moon still keeps watch,
for the golden end.
Afternoon's recalled in dreams
adorned in wild color schemes.

Memory Lane sleeps
as orange noon is coming,
after dusk scarlet.
Lemon-lime hours revisit

......

The weight of dusk

by Little Dark age

Hues of pink and purple tuck the day,
Now fading into gray—
A fragile husk, an empty shell,
Now quiet in the dusk.
Soft, wispy clouds of fluff drift low and slow,
Their curves kissed by a golden glow.
They blush and hush, then pale with grace,
As dusk begins to take their place.
They cradle your silent ache,
The weight you never dared to wake.

......

A Stroke of Bad Luck

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

The elderly Elmer Brown dwelled alone, like a solitary tree on a hill,
Loving quiet, glazed life still, in burgundy, sunset moments of until.

A widower, Elmer Brown had generations of offspring, living far away,
Feeling fresh, foreign breezes, in fruitful terrains, younger than today.

Though retired, Elmer had his hobbies, which gave much satisfaction;
Like a storm of sudden, scathing terror, afore a red hot sun reaction.

Elmer's friends told tales, of truth and fiction; like dream chronicles.

......

He Never Sleeps

by Aryan Bhardwaj

They say he never sleeps,
Eyes wide, a steady gaze,
Not from the buzz of late-night thoughts,
But from the quiet pace of days.

Yet something lingers in his stillness,
A shadow wrapped in light,
A flicker of a restless mind,
Too quiet in the night.

......