MORPHEUS

Red haze purple blessing alarms don't sound today

i can't get up the sun's so hot

on sister morphine's eyelids

along her way to all the heart-stopping o.d.s

in "tiny Greenwich village apartments”

living the New Science where

not speaking does something

to sleep's tyranny

while history's blue recycling bins

get dug through by philosophers of the needle,

by philosophers of Tompkins Square Park

where the Shadow's pigs go mad

again in their circular, again in their weekly

and if you sleep too long you'll never get up

if you sleep too long you'll never get up

and every movie you see's just another sonnifero now

every button on the t.v.'s another bitter

sleeping pill to swallow and the rich

are only happy 'cause the poor despise them

they don't own anything other than that

that's useful.

9/20/94

NYC

Morpheus by Lee Foust