Waking Up Poems - Poems about Waking Up

THALIA'S BARK

My dog’s name is Thalia—
she barks when her tummy’s empty,
barks if she wants my attention,
and barks when a stranger wanders too near,
as if she owns the whole block.

One afternoon in the kitchen,
she just wouldn’t stop.
I figured—alright, food again—
so I scooped her a bowl.
But nope. Still barking her head off.

Curious, I went out to see what

KNOWN TO THE UNKNOWN

I was well known 
When I was alone
 
What was the necessity for you to come into my life?
To mess things up with no sign of strife?

You were the sweet dream that made me sleep a little longer
You have become my nightmares that made me a sleepwalker 

My happy world is broken into bits and

On Waking Without You

I wake to walls.
No feet running, no kettle hissing.

Only the tap of a message not sent.

If I had written to you earlier,
perhaps the morning would feel less like an ending
and more like something possible.

Instead,
I scroll past lives I do not live.

And tell myself:
Next sunrise, maybe.

When Waking is a Wonderful Thing

Sleep held me hostage
this early riser, jumped ship
free will is magic.

Waking

Wavy descent
Fitted garment
No one is chasing me
Time is silent
Radical war
Internal conflict
Limited hope
Eternal distractions
Fearing stagnation
She is not even real
Where do I go?
When will I know?
Stillness brings peace
I am lost in the fog
Darkness has taken me nowhere
Am I bathing in the waters of life?
Hungry for more
Numb to the shadows who whisper my guilt
Destroyed the world with one

Between Dreams and Waking

The moment
When the wisps of that land—
The one where dreams
Wander astray—
Morph into waking.

Where another version of you
Lives a life stitched
From night and mind,

Pauses,
As if deciding
If that dream
Deserves to go on.

That blur you can’t remember
Just before your eyes flutter awake

The hush of nothing
In between
Dreams
And waking.

Waking to Snow

If you listen, 
the morning talks to you
through its white silence.
There is a depth here that falls away 
into prayer, a stillness that seems
to veneer an even deeper still.

My footprints sink into the fresh snow 
and mark it with a kind of sacrilege,
scoring a pristine glaze with
a clumsy presence.
All this undisturbed loveliness 
is already beginning

Trying to REM ember the waking stage of an emotionally tormenting dream

The following account predicated on partial fact and a healthy dose of prevarication with an attendant overactive imagination.

Trying to REM ember the waking stage of an emotionally tormenting dream

One week later
still dog-tired after jarring telephone ordeal
(seven days ago from April 30, 2025)
with fake government employees,
yours truly still emotionally haggard
trembling and wretched
closely following on the figurative

SLEEPING AND WAKING

SLEEPING AND WAKING

We sleep in God's peace,
Why wake up in Satin's wars?
Let's wake how we sleep!

Tinea

A day escaped, 
released from the sticky womb of night
held firm in the arms of midwife morning,
listen to its infant cries 
the wails of a newborn child unfed 
demanding of your bed and sleepy scant attention,
it matters not that you turn your back and try to block your ears
to tears of open-window traffic rage 
and

waking up leopard

Leopard narrowed his yellow eyes for the night
His body is stretched across upper branch tight
He snores easily, but is awakened by a small boor
This small tasty mammal rustled across the jungle floor

Waking To Duality

(“Dragon’s Eye”, 2024, original encaustic)

Waking To Duality

I wake from a dream
Where I’d been in nondual samadhi
A vivid clarity of thoughtless meditation 
I tried to sustain once awake
Until I realized I probably have such dreams
All the time and never know.

The vanity and thus duality of life
Is the desire and attempt to recreate 
What already is 
Making

Waking Up In a Supermarket

I go to the supermarket
to buy some mangoes. 
I’ve had five coffees
And spent hours on detangling 
computer wires. 

Reciting a poem I remember 
from fourth grade
I opened another three college 
letters in the mail yesterday.
The mailman’s teeth were yellow. 

We regret to inform you
We regret to inform you
We regret to inform you that

There are no

Waking up early steals your sleep, but sleeping too long steals your peace

Waking up early steals your sleep, but sleeping too long steals your peace,
Like a morning thief leaving shadows in place of unfulfilled dreams,
Movement makes you feel pain in your muscles, but stillness weakens you,
Like a stone statue crumbling under the weight of time, without motion.
Earning money requires time and effort, but lacking it steals your

Waking Up Lonely

In the morning, I dread waking up.
When I do, there is no you.
Since you left me, it's the one thing
I haven't been able to get used to.

There are nights I drink coffee,
Trying to make myself stay awake.
On the hard days I'm missing you,
There are these pills that I take.

In the end, it doesn't matter.
Eventually my

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