I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas <br />Or The Death of God (that's a Protestant book). <br />To the right the bay as if molten tin, <br />Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city, ocean, <br />Beyond the ocean, ocean, till Japan. <br />To the left dry hills with white grass, <br />Beyond the hills an irrigated valley where rice is grown, <br />Beyond the valley, mountains and Ponderosa pines, <br />Beyond the mountains, desert and sheep. <br /> <br />When I couldn't do without alcohol, I drove myself on alcohol, <br />When I couldn't do without cigarettes and coffee, I drove myself <br />On cigarettes and coffee. <br />I was courageous. Industrious. Nearly a model of virtue. <br />But that is good for nothing. <br /> <br />I feel a pain. <br />not here. Even I don't know. <br />many islands and continents, <br />words, bazaars, wooden flutes, <br />Or too much drinking to the mirror, without beauty, <br />Though one was to be a kind of archangel <br />Or a Saint George, over there, on St. George Street. <br />Please, Doctor, <br />Not here. No, <br />Maybe it's too <br />Unpronounced <br /> <br />Please, Medicine Man, I feel a pain. <br />I always believed in spells and incantations. <br />Sure, women have only one, Catholic, soul, <br />But we have two. When you start to dance <br />You visit remote pueblos in your sleep <br />And even lands you have never seen. <br />Put on, I beg you, charms made of feathers, <br />Now it's time to help one of your own. <br />I have read many books but I don't believe them. <br />When it hurts we return to the banks of certain rivers. <br /> <br />I remember those crosses with chiseled suns and moons <br />And wizards, how they worked during an outbreak of typhus. <br />Send your second soul beyond the mountains, beyond time. <br />Tell me what you saw, I will wait.<br /><br />Czeslaw Milosz<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-sleep-a-lot/
