Sleep Poems | Poemist

Popular Sleep Poems

A Red Palm

by Gary Soto

You're in this dream of cotton plants.
You raise a hoe, swing, and the first weeds
Fall with a sigh. You take another step,
Chop, and the sigh comes again,
Until you yourself are breathing that way
With each step, a sigh that will follow you into town.

That's hours later. The sun is a red blister
Coming up in your palm. Your back is strong,
Young, not yet the broken chair

......

Disabled

by Wilfred Owen

He sat in a wheeled chair, waiting for dark,
And shivered in his ghastly suit of grey,
Legless, sewn short at elbow. Through the park
Voices of boys rang saddening like a hymn,
Voices of play and pleasure after day,
Till gathering sleep had mothered them from him.

About this time Town used to swing so gay
When glow-lamps budded in the light blue trees,
And girls glanced lovelier as the air grew dim,-

......

Lament

by Dylan Thomas

When I was a windy boy and a bit
And the black spit of the chapel fold,
(Sighed the old ram rod, dying of women),
I tiptoed shy in the gooseberry wood,
The rude owl cried like a tell-tale tit,
I skipped in a blush as the big girls rolled
Nine-pin down on donkey's common,
And on seesaw sunday nights I wooed
Whoever I would with my wicked eyes,
The whole of the moon I could love and leave

......

Theme For English B

by Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you--
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here

......

The Duel

by Eugene Field

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
'T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t' other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I wasn't there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

......

Recent Sleep Poems

He Never Sleeps

by Aryan Bhardwaj

They say he never sleeps,
Eyes wide, a steady gaze,
Not from the buzz of late-night thoughts,
But from the quiet pace of days.

Yet something lingers in his stillness,
A shadow wrapped in light,
A flicker of a restless mind,
Too quiet in the night.

......

Our own worlds

by Jeremy Wheeler

Drifting off to sleep tormented by a looping chorus, are the lyrics correct? I do not know!

When will I achieve REM or is tonight's tumble fest already begun?

Maybe I'll be trapped as the vampire who devours spiders or the frightened man stabbed in the sternum by that flat top screwdriver!

How many spiders must go down before I'm aloud to leave? How many stabbings must I feel before I jolt from this dream?

How many teeth will fall out while I sleep?
Why must I be paralyzed while the black figures creep?

......

Drowsing in Dreams

by Evelyn Judy Buehler

Sleeping in blossoms, plush pillows!
Fleeting dreams, of pink, cloud billows.
Red, orange, purple and golden,
spread over green park, so olden.
Soft, the sighs, as hummingbird flies,
Oft' plagued by purple martin cries.
Falling through petals ~ deep, downy.
Crawling time, scented and drowsy.

into the arms of night

by Rikske Kessner

Embrace the evening, let it wrap you
in its gentle whisper, softly gilding
each breath towards a tranquil rest.

Welcome the night, with open heart,
accept its peace, its quiet song,
for life's dance needs both shadow and light.

Surrender, not in defeat, but in grace,
allowing the natural flow of time

......

I got to sleep

by Aldo Kraas

I got to sleep
All through the night
Without getting up
In the middle of the night
I hate getting up in the middle of the night
Going to the bathroom
I am having lots of accidents
Where I pee my bed
And I need to wash
My bed

......