[John Whitworth]

Competition
Lucy Vickery
Wednesday, 17th March 2010
Lucy Vickery presents the latest competition

In Competition No. 2638 you were invited to submit a poem in praise of insomnia.
It is undoubtedly a challenge to find redeeming features in unwanted wakefulness. But you are a resourceful bunch, and came as close as it is possible to come to convincing me that an inability to sleep has its consolations. Next time sleeplessness strikes, then, I will embrace the opportunity to tap the riches of the World Service as I indulge in a spot of online shopping and gorge on brandy and pies unwatched by critical eyes. Or, as Barbara Smoker so eloquently puts it, ‘By minimising midnight mini-death,/ I’ll stretch life’s life until my final breath’.
Mae Scanlan nails well those inconsequential but insistent thoughts that bubble up in the small hours and conspire to separate us from sleep; ‘I agonise about our junk-filled attic,/ And why the furnace makes that awful clinking./ I sigh, and poke my husband, whose sporadic/ But forceful snoring interrupts my thinking’. Bill Greenwell, Josh Ekroy and Adam Campbell were equally impressive. The winners, printed below, get £25 each. The bonus fiver is Chris O’Carroll’s.

My linen lover winds me in her lithe
Embrace, her breast a pillow for my head,
Her limbs the sheets that twine mine as I writhe
And relish this tryst in her sleepless bed.
I feast my wide eyes on the dreamless dark.
I revel in the long nights I’ve enjoyed
Reclining here declining to embark
Upon the royal road of Dr Freud.
(How hapless he, bedevilled by his dreaming,
Who rises, seeks another couch, and pays
To descant on his brain’s nocturnal teeming,
Contriving that his nights should haunt his days.)
Sleep, be not proud. Though some crave thy caress,
I find more pure allure in wakefulness.
Chris O’Carroll

Sleep will not come by being willed;
It tantalises those who try
To grasp at it: far better lie
And let all wilfulness be stilled.
For this is a most precious time —
Unharried, undisturbed, unfraught —
For gentle, horizontal thought,
To plan, to reason — or to rhyme.
Once in the underworld of sleep
It’s Morpheus who controls your mind:
Your dreams are those that he’s designed
While you are helpless in his keep.
Awake in bed you’re truly free
To think of anything you choose:
But that’s a power sleep makes you lose
In passive surreality.
W.J. Webster

Should sleep be difficult at night,
I never groan or seek respite.
Instead, I creep beneath the stars
To frequent dark, illegal bars
Where, while the city gets its rest,
I join the ranks of the obsessed —
The unasleep (though not undead)
Who spurn the comfort of the bed.
The background sound’s a smoochy sax
For nighthawks and insomniacs,
The manners rough, the ashtrays full
And half the conversation bull.
Who cares? The straight world dreams its dreams
Of mortgages and pensions schemes.
We drink and rave the night away
Till blinding light announces day.
G.M. Davis

Some yearn to rest, and pray for sleep in vain;
But it’s those hours of wakefulness I like,
Those long, slow hours in darkness when the brain
Is loosed to wander, take a little hike
Round secret places which in daylight seem
Not to exist. I love those ancient shames,
Those half-forgotten guilts, that almost-dream
That teases memory and plays mind-games
With my poor self-esteem, revealing all.
Then once I’ve had enough I quit the fray,
And just get up, and bathe my aching eyes,
Or read a book, or contemplate the wall,
Or wait, aware that without doubt I’ll prize
That spaced-out feeling later in the day.
Gerard Benson

A very overrated pastime, sleep!
Though Shelley finds it ‘sweet’, for Keats it’s ‘magic’,
For me the nightlong vigil that I keep
Is restful, nightmare-free, in no way tragic.

At holiday hotels I often find
That kitchens stay unlocked when supper’s ended;
Full many a midnight feasting comes to mind,
Somnambulance my plea if apprehended.

‘Beware of the insomniac’; my sign
Has kept all would-be burglars from my door.
Astronomy’s a passion now of mine;
I know my stars — move over, Patrick Moore!

No need then for alarm clocks, and I find
That girlfriends know full well, when I suggest a
Post-prandial nap, that what I have in mind
Is no traditional afternoon siesta.
Roger Theobald

Da Vinci burned the midnight oil,
as did the Bard without whose toil
today we’d lack a ‘Mona Lisa’,
a Hamlet and a Julius Caesar.
Had Descartes not been wont to lie
awake, would he have watched that fly?
All ye who vainly try to sleep,
if you’d just give up counting sheep
while tossing on those restless seas,
you might create a masterpiece:
an opera or philosophy —
but, failing that, just watch TV.
Marion Shore

[basil ransome-davies]

Congratulations, Chris & Marion

bazza

[Jayne Osborn]

Chris and Marion,

Well done!

Jayne :-)

[Marion Shore]

Thanks Bazza and Jayne.
And all of you who helped me condense my original version (convincing me to remove the controversial "making zees"), especially Bob to whom I certainly owe at least a quid or two for his help!

And congrats, Chris. The Fabulous Fiver! Way to go!

[Roger Slater]

Chris, well done on the bonus fiver!

Marion, forget the quid or two. I'd rather you be eternally in my debt. Congratulations. I knew it was a winner.

Since for me "insomnia" means those occasions when it takes me up to ninety seconds to fall asleep, I guess the inspiration just wasn't there.

[FOsen]

Congratulations, Chris, Marion, and Bill, for the hon mensch.

Frank

[Susan McLean]

Well done, Chris and Marion. Bill, even to rate an honorable mention is something.

Susan