Poetry and Sleep
Sleep Apnea
The Snoring Bedmate
John V. Kelleher
(16th Century—Irish)
You thunder at my side,
Lad of ceaseless hum;
There’s not a saint would chide
My prayer that you were dumb.
The dead start from the tomb
With each blare from your nose.
I suffer, with less room,
Under these bedclothes.
With could I better bide
Since my head’s already broke—
Your pipe-drone at my side,
Woodpecker’s drill on oak?
Brass scraped with knicky knives
A cowbell’s tinny clank,
Or the yells of tinkers’ wives
Giving birth behind a bank?
A drunken, braying clown
Slapping cards down on a board
Were less easy to disown
Than the softest snore you’ve snored
Sweeter the grunts of swine
Than yours that win release.
Sweeter, bedmate mine,
The screech of grieving geese.
A sick calf’s moan for aid,
A broken mill’s mad clatter,
The snarl of flood cascade…
Christ! now what’s the matter?
That was a ghastly growl!
What signified that twist?—
An old wolf’s famished howl,
Wave-boom at some cliff’s breast?
Storm screaming round a crag,
Bellow of raging bull,
Hoarse bell or rutting stag,
Compared with this were lull!
Ah, now a gentler fall—
Bark of a crazy hound?
Brats squabbling for a ball?
Ducks squawking on a pond?
No, rough weather’s back again.
Some great ships’s about to sink
And roaring bursts the main
Over the bulwark’s brink!
Farewell, tonight, to sleep.
Every gust across the bed
Makes hair rise and poor flesh creep.
Would that one of us were dead!
Breathing Easier
Otto J. Reincke
Regina, SK
Can’t you sleep, and do you snore?
Better rest desire more?
Do you rattle and sound wheezy?
Apnea they call this lore.
You are tired for evermore.
The neighbourhood knows when you sleep,
You cut logs three truckloads deep.
CPAP does come to your help,
That you a better sleep develop.
Snorkelsaurus makes it fair
With the help of VitalAire.
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