Falling Asleep
(with the Television on)
Ross E. Lockhart
Sometimes...
I feel sorry for God...
because he never had a mom
to teach him right & wrong
and hang his drawings
on the refrigerator.
This Thought breaks the surface of my sea
of interlace scan and cathode rays. I drift
towards Slumber's morphine mouth
watch my Thought crest,
then fall back,
s p l a s h .
The nightly news fades...
to late-night show
to infomercial
to cold gray snow
and I am buried, warm,
another drift entirely.
Falling asleep,
television on, keepsake of
a simpler time,when we would fall asleep on skins
a younger time,
an ancient time,
by firelight, secure in knowing
all was safe.
Knowing someone would be there
to tend the fire.