Welcome, blog readers, to another installment of our Pick-a-Poem series. Every week, we choose a new poem to feature here on the blog. If you’re interested in reading poetry and need some new poetry in your life, this might be the place to find it. Our featured poems all come from Poetry Daily, which is a great website and resource for new poetry. They feature a new poem every day, so check them out if you want more to read! Today we’re featuring Morning by Alan Gillis.
According to his page on Poetry Daily, Alan Gillis is an Irish poet whose poetry collections have earned him many awards and recognitions. His first collection, Somebody, Somewhere (2004), won the Rupert and Eithne Strong Award for best first collection. Another of his collections, Hawks and Doves (2007), was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize. His latest collection, Here Comes the Night, was published in 2010. He has also written several volumes of criticism. He is currently a lecturer at The University of Edinburgh and serves as the editor of Edinburgh Review.
Morning by Alan Gillis
To wake up is weird.
A clone of yourself,
you don’t know where
you went, when you weren’t here.
It looks like nowhere.The night’s storm of memories,
hex of dreams, has lifted.
A shower rinses you clean
again—good to go
on to the next night of memories, dreams.Their interventions.
Moving on is more and more
like trying to reach an invented
somewhere you’ve already been.
To be there better than before.You rush to catch your only bus
wishing you could enter the blue
day like a vast meteorological
disturbance. But you do not pass
through life, it passes through youthe way the night passed
through on its way to who
knows where. And, though it looks
as if it had just come around,
that sun was already there.
I hope you enjoyed this week’s featured poem! For more posts like this, click here!
— Jet Fuel Blog Editor, Mary Egan
