Sleepless Night in Iceland

Elizabeth Reinhart 1938 (Belfast)

Life

Blank verse

I wake quickly
The mattress growling
Like an animal below the bed
The light blazes a second
He maps his way to the bathroom
We are in a small room
Six sleeping crates
Bunk beds like coffins
Ours a double.
Sweating in our hot tomb I strip off my socks, fling covers aside
Touching my sleeping book
Angry at the world.
What do I care about foreign assassins
Shooting their victims three times in the face
My own domestic killer
Home grown, up close and personal is
Right here in our bed
Pointing his gun in both directions
One bullet for his body
One for my heart.
I don't need fiction
Reality tells its own horror story.
Returned, he soon snores softly
Gentle, like he is.
I pull the quilt across us like armor
And turn to face the demon of this night
Slayer of my sleep
The Goliath in the room.
With bare feet and fists
I sling my first stone.

About this poem

I wrote this poem 9 years ago. I was visiting Iceland with my husband who was dying of bone cancer.

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Written on October 26, 2014

Submitted by eliz0459 on October 27, 2023

: 50 sec read
: 41 Views

Quick analysis:

Scheme	ABCDEEFGHIJKLMNOCLAPQAAONRSETU
Closest metre	Iambic tetrameter
Characters	843
Words	168
Stanzas	1
Stanza Lengths	30

Full analysis for Sleepless Night in Iceland »

Elizabeth Reinhart

Old retired Latin teacher. Widowed in 2016. Mother of three adult children and four grandchildren more…

All Elizabeth Reinhart poems | Elizabeth Reinhart Books

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Symmetry60
Nicely written. Love the concept. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. ;-)
LikeReply5 months ago
Jewoo525
The perfect encapsulation of a moment. The imagery, and the expressions, drew me right into the moment with pin-point accuracy. All of the emotions can be felt from the powerful imagery, all to describe a rather- somewhat humorously- mundane event in someone's life. The author probably had many stories to tell from their trip to Iceland, many adventures filled with more exciting emotions; yet, the choice to select such a simple, intimate, and human moment of experience, truly adds a lot to this poem's charm. I really liked reading it. It's almost like I was just a couple of bunks over, experiencing the same thing. The poem overall shows a lot of skill in the craft of writing as well, both in the decisions the author makes and in the tightly constructed structure- no fat on this one! Any poem that can take you on an adventure, even if its to the lesser seen moments of our lives (arguably, harder to achieve this) is worthy of my vote. Very well done, I truly enjoyed it. more »
LikeReply5 months ago

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