Eric Ashford Poet Free verse

Nod

The neck slips 
into low-mind-clouds.
closed eyes shutter nevertheless
              atop 2 blind cliff edges.

The people of the United States 
are nodding
                     off.
It happens to all places – often
We have named that ‘often’ – then & now.
In other, much older realms,
   the people are deeply covered over,
only slumbering between dreams.

Nod with me,
let the sky under your skull
         seep like a rising mist
           over walls and roofs.
You will need poetry & myth,
        imaginative ways to travel.

In far off places, men walk inside women
and women rest in the menfolk.
                                 In the West 
we somnambulate through each other, 
seeing nothing, finding nothing
                            to muse upon.
The people of the wilderness
know how to nod off the planet
while leaning on a long stick.
Nodding over the ocean waves
the albatross sees everything.

The world changes its face
      just before the nod,
just before the neck muscles
react to the head drop;
          that is the jump,
go ahead jump with your chin 
on the breast of oblivion.

You can nod 
to that former self 
                 that slumps now
there in that mythical chair

but then turn away,
    go forth & live a little.

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