POEM: When I Wake (Part I)

When I first awake
When I wake
When I first awake
And when I arise
When I awake and rise to greet the day
When I am alive and before I judge things
Before I am judge and jury
Of myself and others
Before I am sane and brim full of logic
While I am still groggy but before the deep rush
Of sobriety and good common sense
Races in before I hold back
And surround myself
Before I hold back and isolate
Before I know the meanings of words
Before I wear knowledge like clothing
Before words become mayflies
And I swat at them unmercifully
As some annoyance
When I first open my eyes
When alertness and caution creeps in like the dampness
When I am able to be
Just to be
Before my pain has had its first
Cup of coffee
When I am defenseless and stupid
And naïve and a dupe, it
Is THAT person that I want you to know

Me at my very best at my most inept
At my most unkempt
Slavishly attached to my disheveled best
Unhinged as an open box, open
To the joyful crying outstretched arms
Of the blue of sky which has waited
For me all this time
For the real me –
To once and for all finally arrive.