Pause For Poetry:
Michael Hawkes /63

Woke

A poem by Michael Hawkes

Awakened,

Semi-conscious

In a comfy realm

Of eiderdown and underwear.

I raise my drowsy head

Above the duvet clouds

To survey the sunlit morning

Bursting rudely, irrepressibly

Into every corner of my space.

But am I ready

With the dripping faucet

To face another day

In contemplation of my anguish,

Thick and addled, permeating,

Amorphous, hard to place?

Shall I pull

The bed clothes up,

To burrow in

As though forgetting

And try to hide

My permanent disgrace?

My shame for having trod

The earth so roughly,

For having left a heavy trace.

Or surrender

To the power of sunshine,

Venture out and fall

Contagiously repentant

Into its mad embrace?

25/09/22 – Hawkes

Feature image: Ketut Subiyanto, Pexels

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