I cannot sleep, there is no rest for me.
I struggle vainly to stave off the night –
I rise and go where I can sit and think
And seek the solace of my reading light.

For many are the pages in my thoughts,
And myriad the worries of my shelves:
But there, beside the steady gleaming light
If find the single self inside my selves.

For nothing reads as a poorly as a brain
That’s separated from itself and sleep;
To jump around in pools of consciousness,
Confused and with strange company to keep

But there’s a friend for me, and faithfully,
A solace in my old, familiar chair —
And night must take its dinner somewhere else;
I checked, and still
My reading light
Is there

At night I often clamber.
It’s just a thing I do;
I climb up towards the stars until
My clambering is through

Perhaps it’s just insomnia,
A sleep-inducing chore;
Still, doesn’t anybody
Ever clamber anymore?

Why DO I write so frickin’ much?
I CANnot say, I cannot say
Why WON’T the words leave me alone?
There HAS to be a better way

To TURN this madness into fire,
TURN the fire into verse;
TURN my mind off for a while,
LET sleep to my spirit nurse

WHY am I so sleep-bedraggled
WHEN I do not sleep at all?
WILL this writing soon demise me,
ROBbing Peter
TO pay Paul?