Speccie: Wakey Wakey
 

Basil Ransome-Davies kept up the honour of the sphere with his splendid and exasperated effort. Full results below in Competition. Here is this week's insomnia inducing problem.

No. 2638: Wakey, wakey
You are invited to submit a poem singing the praises of insomnia (16 lines maximum). Please email entries, where possible, to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 10 March.

Now somebody tell me I've got the wrong end of the stick.

Wakey Wakey

Wakey wakey. Half past three.
Make yourself a cup of tea.
A cup of tea will clear your head.
The cat is waiting to be fed.
You feed the cat. The cat is stout
And stouter now. You put him out.
The moon is silver in the sky.
You cut yourself a slice of pie.
The moon is silver like a sickle.
You add a dash of onion pickle.
You put a tray across your knees
And tune to the Antipodes
Where mighty men are playing cricket
And England have another wicket.
Ponting is taken in the deep.
What a night to waste on sleep!

Ok, my very dear friend John,

I hope you won't think I'm being hypercritical but only the last line is actually singing the praises of insomnia. I think it calls for much more of a 'Whoopeee, I can't sleep!' sort of thing - but it's early days yet; look how 'New word order' first started, compared with how it ended when we'd all got the hang of what was actually called for.

You always kick-start it for us, which is great, but I'm sure you can improve on this. That's my initial response, anyway. Onwards and upwards!

I'm hoping to do better before the deadline, but just to break the ice:



Sleep one third of every day?
That means before you're dead
you'll piss away some twenty years
unconscious in your bed!

Insomnia's the way to go,
a blessing in disguise.
Don't fight it. There'll be time enough
someday to close your eyes.

Wakey wakey
 

The middle lines are terrific, John – cadences, repetitions & euphonics that even in this light piece have a hypnotic, Wallace Stevens-like quality (I'm probably thinking of 'The Idea of Order at Key West', to my mind about as good as verse gets), giving the reader a sense of enjoyment from objective correlatives & vibes rather than overt celebration. So for me – even setting aside my personal view that cricket, as Joe Smith the old Bolton player & Blackpool manager put it, is 'like watching celery grow' – the final ones are comparatively dilute & pedestrian.

I wonder how many eratonauts will recognise Billy Cotton's old heads-up call.

Cripes, Bazza, Wallace Stevens- America's greatest poet. I bloody wish. Your cricket blind spot I quite forgive. I have NEVER watched a football match. My father once took me to a Hearts and Hibs derby but all I could see was grown men pissing into beer bottles and throwing them on the pitch. Hearts won 4-3 so I am told. The ball goes from one end to the other with no sense or reason to it. One day I will sit you down to watch Virinder Sehwag bat. Celery indeed!

Wallace Stevens though!

Insomnia

I really love insomnia
and so today I rue it:
last night I had insomnia
but sadly slept right through it.

The next time that insomnia
arrives to overtake me,
would someone please be good enough
to take the time and wake me?

wakey wakey
 

Toutes proportions gardees, you will understand, John; but I meant it, the formal excellence. I suppose I may as well get my feet wet here by chucking in a first draft:

No. 2638: Wakey, wakey

Four in the morning, Scott Fitzgerald said,
Is always the true dark night of the soul,
When waves of guilt and fear invade the bed
And sleeplessness is life without parole.

But now insomnia creates the chance
To light a doobie, go online and get
Your choice of virtual euphoriants
Proffered in lavish splendour by the Net.

For some it's porn, for others sports reports
Or news from God; whatever, click your mouse
And you'll be happy, leaving morbid thoughts
To wilt and die beside your snoring spouse.

The cyberworld is better than a dream.
It's more amenable, and has more class.
I spend the small hours in the screen's blue beam
While Debbie Harry rips out 'Heart Of Glass'.

Just chat, John, but if I'd seen my first football match in Scotland I would probably have given up. I did watch cricket quite a bit in the fifties at the St Lawrence ground, as I was at school in Canterbury. The Australians who toured in the mid-50s (Bradman had retired but Harvey, Miller & Lindwall were playing) were unforgettable, tons of skill & a cavalier attitude.

In Praise of Insomnia

At night time my bedroom is teeming
with children cavorting and screaming,
and knocks on my door
I could well ignore,
but don’t, as I know I’m not dreaming

And as she comes wiping my tears,
and caressing, assuages my fears;
I never feel lonely,
she loves me-- it's only
that Alice is dead forty years.

To insomnia! I praise it and say;
may I be awake night and day—
those friends by my bed
are alive in my head;
but sleeping—they all drift away.

Lovely bits already! I am rather enjoying getting to learn about all of your through your words. Quite a treat! Alright, here's a little scribble to get started:

Shakespeare's Awake!

"To sleep, perchance to dream…"
The adage that's age old,
But tell me please, Sir Shakespeare,
How long's that lie been sold?

Living dreams are better
Than any found in sleep;
'Tis why you burned your candle
While others counted sheep.

John, I just had to say the stout cat made me laugh out loud.

Why thank you, Gail. Drawn from life, I have to say. And putting him out doesn't have the required effect, I have to say. An old fool. Ah well, that makes two of us.

Baz - cricket at the Saint Lawrence Ground - and in the days of the tree! (I bet only Holly, thee and me get the allusion.) I wonder which school. Kent College - alma mater of Godfrey Evans?

Simon bloody Langton. But Evans – there was a fella, usually half-pissed.

The only rhyme I can find for 'insomnia' is the classical tag 'amor vincit omnia', love conquers all, don't you know. I suppose a bit too much of THAT might bring about insomnia but, so I'm told, the opposite is usually the case, at least in the case of the male.

Bazza, just down from the ground then. There exists somewhere a picture of the great Godfrey dressed as Carmen Miranda. There may have been better wicket-keepers, but how many of them could take a bet while cross-dressing? They don't make 'em like that any more.

Amor vincit omnia
And causes my insomnia.
I lie in bed
with splitting head.
Amor vincit Omnia.

The Mommas and the Pappas
Are at it like the clappers.
Instead of snooze
They hit the booze.
The Mommas and the Pappas.

You need your forty winks
So stow the fancy drinks
And too much bonk
Just makes you cronk.
You need your forty winks.

Not QUITE on the subject perhaps. Cronk is an Oz word, by the way. I am nothing if not cosmopolitan.

A nice bit of levity. I would add:

My head is full of rats.
My sleep's disturbed by cats.
My only hope
Is smoking dope.
My head is full of rats.

The old boys' Langton was in the centre of town, pretty much surrounded by bomb sites when I started there. When it was demolished Peter Watkins used it as ruined Budapest for a short film about the Hungarian uprising, The Forgotten Faces.

I've been awake for days,
To find a scheme that pays.
No sleep may come
Until I've won
The 'fiver' and the praise!

Wakey Wakey

The Kink is in his counting house the Queen is on the moon-
the Berlin Philharmonic lets me play a ragtime tune-
yippee yi yo ki yo ki yay an old cowhand begins to bay
and I forgot a bill to pay and ten thousand fans applaud the way
I scored a goal that won the day- a shoal of fish accept my fly-
for the umpteenth time I wonder why I did not have a neat reply
that would destroy pug head Molloy and in his place
put him and his ugly face looking like a half boiled shite
I'd answer now- I dwell a while on a winsome smile
that lit the night a girl I met with a lovely name
that I wholly forget and how did I a miss a chance like that
I wonder I wonder is she still the same is she gone to fat or what's she at
oh she was gorgeous -I think of a word that makes a rhyme and figure
how to fix a line- and then I think of what 'twill cost
to fix my car and friends I lost when lines were crossed.
Bernadette ! . And sleep is lost.

Thanks to Insomnia

While tossing and turning and yawning
all night till the morning is dawning

is something most people complain of
and tell you at length it's the bane of

their lives and will bore you to tears with
laments that they fill your poor ears with,

for those of us hearing them prattle
to fall fast asleep is no battle.

Their whining complaints are so boring,
in less than ten minutes we're snoring.

Nice to see you again, Jim, for the second time in a few days. I wondered whither you had wandered. I've been rolling your lines round my tongue - verfy fruity.

Thank you John, I saw you announce a Speccie comp for best loser and thought I'd enter being as how it's a subject close to my heart an' all.

Besides, I noted that Schechter is sweeping the boards and a fit of jealousy overtook me to the extent that I thought I'd better try and do something about it. Mind you, it's only trying.

Sleep is overrated.
Sitting up is fun.
Why lie down sedated
waiting for the sun?

Time to throw a party,
or clean the dresser drawers!
I'm awake and hearty
while the city snores.

Neither theft nor fire
will take me unawares.
I could hear a vampire
stealing up the stairs.

For a midnight panic
it's better to be dressed,
and if I'm rather manic
at least I'm not depressed.

What an adorable little poem. I hope you won't change a word.

Jim, I'm glad to have galvanized you. Good stuff. And Gail, love yours too.

I can't seem to catch the spirit of this comp. Here's my latest off the mark attempt:

NOCTURNAL

I dreamt I had insomnia.
I thrashed upon my bed
dreaming I was not asleep
but wide awake instead.

Later on I woke for real.
I thrashed, and then I knew:
if you want it bad enough,
dreams sometimes come true.

Where the scribe and where the bard?
Lying wide-eyed on his bed,
combing through his mental lexicon
for that fugitive mot juste,
vital to the smart beau geste
couplet playing ping-pong in his brain.

“Once upon a midnight dreary”—
Poe recorded in his diary
that which every ardent scribbler knows:
somewhere in the hours between
midnight and the break of dawn,
inspiration parties with the muse.

So give heed, you who would mock
this confirmed insomniac:
while you dream away your lives,
we the sleepless live our dreams.

oOOo

Re. a rhyme for insomnia:

A victory in 2012 for Romney, a
Sure recipe for Democrats' insomnia.

I cannot sleep, or sleep in fits.
My Southern friend said, "Try some grits."
But I don't consider hominy a
cure for a bad case of insomnia.

I dreamt that I dwelt in marble halls
Upon the Marsh of Romney, a
Farrago of such utter balls
It led to my insomnia.

In Praise of Insomnia
 

Insomnia I’ve never had
And it does not make me glad
What it does is make me mad.
Too much sleep is very bad
A waste of time I could have had
To think and do, it's really sad.

A win for President Mitt Romney, a
Sure recipe for Dem insomnia.
Add Sarah Palin as his veep,
And nobody'd get any sleep.

Insomniacs are so exciting
Always have more time for writing
Draped on sofas, doing nothing
Pale and wan and interesting
bedroom eyes, exotic looking
never told to do the cooking

robust girls sleep tight all night
waking them is quite a fight
even when the sun is bright
in the early morning light
cheeks bright red, they are a sight
let them work, it’s only right,

Insomnia

Insomnia! You are the best.
Poetry lovers all feel blest
because you kept a poet from sleep.
Instead of resting he got dressed,

went out into the easy sweep
of downy flake, through woods as deep
and dark and lovely as an oak,
then wrote what has the power to creep

inside your soul. I have awoke
to verse’s force. Just at the stroke
of midnight, I got up to grip
paper and pen and drank some Coke,

then took a mesmerizing trip
to Wakey World in my spaceship,
and scrawled this verse with ballpoint tip,
and scrawled this verse with ballpoint tip.

I have a restless leg, that’s right
and that one’s left—one sleepless night
you told me, “either get some meds
or after this it’s separate beds.”
I tried some carbamazepine,
temazepam, some clonidine,
diazepam, ropinerole,
triazolam and tramadol,
but when I balked at gabapentin
you, dearest, rather than relenting,
moved out—I went on baclofen,
which worked, so please come back again.
Come feel: calm shin, a calm knee, a
me rigid with insomnia.
Each limb's as quiet as a mouse,
but now I’ve got a restless spouse.

Psst, Frank! It's a giggle, but does your line 5 have an extra foot?

Yes, Maryann, but haven't you been following the thread on metrical substitution -what better place for an extra foot than a poem about restless leg syndrome??? [emoticon here]

Your restless leg poem is clever, Frank, but is it really about "the praises of insomnia"? (I saw this when you had that extra foot. I see you've fixed it.)

Martin

I wonder what gorillas eat?
And, wondering, I lie awake.
Nuts and berries, or red meat?
Can it be both, for heaven's sake?

Carnivore or herbivore,
or is the answer omni? A
question that I can't ignore:
it's given me insomnia.

It might be nice to go to sleep,
but sleeplessness is also sweet.
I love to lie awake and keep
wondering what gorillas eat.

wakey wakey
 

Final version. I found that a regular iambic metre in line 3 of stanza 2 numbed the end-rhyme in the preceding line, so I reversed the opening foot & opportunely substituted a disyllable that chimed with 'lavish' in line 4. 'Taste contentment' I thought was stronger than 'you'll be happy', and suggested welcoming the reader to a kind of mystical/ sensual ecstasy, altogether superior to the slumbering, non-virtual world.

Four in the morning, Scott Fitzgerald said,
Is always the true dark night of the soul,
When waves of guilt and fear invade the bed
And sleeplessness is life without parole.

But now insomnia creates the chance
To light a doobie, go online and get
Lashings of virtual euphoriants
Arrayed in lavish splendour on the Net.

For some it's porn, for others sports reports
Or news from God; whatever, click your mouse
And taste contentment, leaving morbid thoughts
To wilt and die beside your snoring spouse.

The cyberworld is better than a dream.
It's more amenable, and has more class.
I spend the small hours in the screen's blue beam
While Debbie Harry rips out 'Heart Of Glass'.

Gail's is an absolute gem and B R-D's looks like another contender.

I might take a chance on a cod-Shakespeare sonnet, though the subject will almost certainly be too near the knuckle (or something) for Lucy's judgely sensibilities ---

Sleep does not knit the ravelled sleeve of care
but offers only subterfuge, it seems,
to lovers thinking satisfaction there
who wake amid the cooling shame of dreams.
Love spent alone will plant no welcome seed.
Requited love must be true love’s intent.
A conjoined double joy is Love’s best need,
and love spent while asleep is love ill-spent.
To plant enduring seeds Love needs a bed,
a well tilled furrow and a gentle hand.
Love will not germinate which is not fed
by love that is not jointly gained and planned.
For this, a night’s entwined insomnia
should prove amor can truly vincit omnia.

Withdrawn it.