Introducing a new series of poems by Julian Matthews. Julian is a writer and Pushcart-nominated poet published in The American Journal of Poetry, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Borderless Journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Dream Catcher Magazine, Live Encounters Magazine, Lothlorien Poetry Journal and The New Verse News, among others. He is a mixed-race minority from Malaysia and lived in Ipoh for seven years. Currently based in Petaling Jaya, he is a media trainer and consultant for senior management of multinationals on Effective Media Relations, Social Media and Crisis Communications. He was formerly a journalist with The Star and Nikkei Business Publications Inc
Link: https://linktr.ee/julianmatthews
By Julian Matthews
It is late and you are awake, stricken by Poet’s Insomnia
You count sheep — and stop at one
You wonder how this lone sheep got here
The scene is a green, verdant field,
framed by white picket fences, rolling hills, shining sun
Scratch that—
Why is this field so green and verdant?
Make it windswept, dirty-olive long-grass, patches of burnt umber
Make the fence mottled, termite-infested, rotting like a grounded pirate’s ship
For that matter, why do hills always have to roll?
Make them weathered, fossil-studded, miocene
Forget the sun
And who does this sheep in the foreground belong to anyway?
Surely not Mary or Little Bo Peep
And why should its fleece be white as snow?
Too cliché
Make it the colour of old lace, flecked parchment, speckled with rust brown
Let a soft breeze blow, lightly at first, then make the wind pick up
The scene darkens, the sky groans, lightning pierces the horizon
Rain pours down faster and faster like slanted glass lances
And the sheep – your sheep – the one you were counting on
transmogrifies into a coyote, no, a hyena,
no, a rabid wolf, fangs bared
It stares directly at you, irises enlarging menacingly,
two shiny, pulsing cannonballs about to go off
it growls dripping saliva, hackles raised,
about to pounce
And you lie there, resurrected, like Lazarus
fingers reaching for phone
to write it all down
