Best Insomnia Poems
the stillness of night
waiting with breathless silence
until the sunrise
I close my eyes
Orbits sunk deep within
Scowering the cesspool of dream fragments.
I lay cool against the flat sheet
Waiting patiently for deep sleep to cast all
dream fragments from memory.
Sleepless Nights - Limerick Insomnia Revisited
Limericks are so hard to write.
Sometimes, keep me up half the night
Spending way too much time
Just trying to rhyme
A word that’s just out of sight.
Written By John Posey
07/02/13
My mind
unstable foundation.
They keep talking,
through dreams, comes communication.
A combination,
another citation
never any satisfaction
(Look over here, another distraction)
Formation into another illustration
division by another diversion.
So, what version can take me out of isolation?
(Wait, murder? I thought this was multiplication.)
How many live there now? I need some information.
Because if this conversation involves a congregation
then call for an assembly, it’s time for orientation.
How many are there? I think this is beyond regulation.
It’s time for a confession!
(Why? There has been no violation.)
The situation may be a possession
But I do not have the protection of religion.
Nothing in moderation
We do not need validation from an administration.
The revelation has been in question.
Objection! This is all just speculation.
I’m getting a suspicion that there have been signs of manipulation.
There are signs of depression and in addition
I would like to draw your attention to the blatant exaggeration
and ask for your cooperation
So, we can move past the persecution
to focus on the solution.
The verdict is in!
What is the conclusion?
To Be Continued...
My thoughs are running wild
I'm trapped in a moment in time
When were we young and in love
I recall your masculine voice
I recall your gentle and loving touch
I'm abandoned in yesterday
I live in the memories we made
You are constantly on my mind
Your touch lingers on my skin
I can feel the ghost of yesterday's kiss
Baby my mind won't let me rest
How can I sleep without you beside me
Sick lungs whispering secrets untold
Bones reveal tempo with aches and moans
The clock precariously loses time
Pipe in teeth, pen writes the rhymes
Sounds of shadows haunt the halls
Strolling parapets on the walls
Impatiently waiting and growing tall
In darkening anger as night does fall
Tormenting noise of echoing drafts
Spirited shouts of children's laughs
This empty house my creepy craft
Teases the mind with visions of past
Cowering supine in pallet covered
Spare pillow cold smells of another
In loneliness sleep in distance hovers
Concealing dreams of a silhouette lover
A comforting cup drowns a pill
The shadows sleep as cuckoo stills
As mares of night gallop black hills
My aging body restlessly yields
An original poem by Daniel Turner
Five after four in the morning. Night-sweats
rumple silk bed sheets. Vague cusp ‘tween night and day
blurs chiseled contours of sanity’s sharpness.
Dreams half-way loosed into consciousness waylay
snuggling comforts. Wee hours’ vague demons lurk
tucked beneath pillowcased hopes, threatening melee.
Coffee at four twenty, brewed under knee-jerk
rituals uncritically gleaned in tender years,
won’t clear the spider webs. Thinking is hard work.
Terrible, really, yet recently shed tears
obscure simple joy’s sole right to imminence,
caking like blood drawn by yesterday’s spears.
‘Til mercy’s sunbeams despite grief’s vehemence
melt bitter frostbite of long lost innocence.
Sometimes he feels like a museum on
a Monday - empty, desolate, withdrawn
from the celestial library where not
yet written prose and poetry are stored.
A sleep-deprived, he walks around the rooms,
he curses rhymes and rhythms, he assumes
a pledge to give it up, to live a life
a mere human lives - to have a wife,
to find a paying job, to meet with friends,
to be a fan of “Liverpool”* that tends
to take last place this season, to get old,
to pay off mortgages, to die from cold
but not insomnia…
As someone said,
nothing is fuller than an empty head.
*England's football club
11/14/2019
Favourite Poem From November 2019 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
Insomnia’s Dream
A Poetic Expression by JC Hawkens
I reach for the walls
Blinded by the light
I hear a voice call
With rhythm and rhyme
Not a shadow in sight
Fear hangs as tension that mounts
My head is so empty
It screams in my mind
A lingering hope that kills only
with time
In a motion I break from the bed
To conquer the light
found only in my head
Stand sight of the clock
At quarter past three
A nightmare I can not win
Awake and never free
A container of my freedom within my grasp
A flip of the top, comes to pass
With water from a glass
An answer for a reflection
None too soon in coming
A sleep at last
Forever in peace
Not a voice to awaken
Nor a light to break this sleep
Teeming pools of spawning thoughts
Irrational coiling tendrils and knots
Restless limbs and rattled brain
Exquisite need for some slight refrain
Deprived of basal corporal need...
...I am so...tired.
Like a secret confided with his last breath
Dangling from his every syllable
He draws me near whispering in my ear
Reaches in to the depths of my soul
He holds my beating heart
In the palm of his cold hand
The demons lurk in the thick murky fog
On my walk at dusk thru an ill lit park
They toy with the last moments before sunrise
While the city seems to still sleep
I’ve said my goodbyes to the tune of violins
Stirring withered brittle leaves as death circles
Cold winds whirl and no one sees my tears
I’ve swayed to my last waltz
I can finally forget the insomnia that has me
In the grip of darkness devoid of guiding star
AP: 3rd place 2020
Insomnia can sometimes be my friend
Its where many a poem begin and end
Ideas are hatched – some I’ll even keep
While tossing and turning, chasing sleep
But insomnia can also be a curse
Mountainous mole holes look even worse
I dread the morning arriving too soon
Knowing my energy will be zapped before its noon
But, try as I may, I can’t put her off
She invades my body like a persistent cough
I lie awake when I should be not
That sandman refuses to be caught
I have a tired body but a restless mind
Relaxation techniques I cannot find
My dreams are waiting for me to doze
Perhaps tonight – for the sun has rose
Insomnia feels like its a inner demon inside laughing at us keeping us up on purpose, just to torture us to the brink of insanity.
We sit up all day and all night, the days running into one another over and over again. The pain we feel is more intense at night and even more intense without sleep.
Insomnia is like the devil ready to burn you alive, but instead insomnia is a slow and steady rain hitting your forehead making you go insane,
Screaming and crying his name Insomnia.
Gentle is the growl of the distant traffic.
The heat of the vanishing night
Tumbles through the wide inviting window
As summer's last hoorah cascades
A tsunami of over-ripe heat
Across the surface of the dusty duvet
Where I lie
To suck the resistant moisture
From my pores
And simultaneously steal my sleep
The wild creatures are subdued.
Lucid thoughts crowd into
The sleepless void like
A second unwelcome visitor.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee
Want to wrestle me into the world..
I reach for the ropes with hopes of
A friendly hand, to tag me back
Into the realm of unreality..
Gentle is the growl of the distant traffic.
Jinjagoliath
10th September 2023
4am
Insomnia
The sun is peeking over the horizon
A new day to begin
I get up to open the curtain
To let the sunlight in
A bird is chirping outside my window
Tweeting a morning song
And I find myself humming
Just trying to sing along
My mind begins to work,
With thoughts, but none too deep
And I really can’t help but wonder
“WHY CAN’T I GET TO SLEEP?”