Member-only story
Can’t Sleep Without Me
Old habits die hard
Removed from the bedside and dumped in a box
Slid under the bed. Well what a nerve!
He’s bought one of those modern radio clocks
No thanks to me for the years that I served
No more will he wake to my hammering din
From now he’ll be stirred by a radio show
And a handy snooze button will let him lie in
Where all I could offer was get up and go!
But all is not well for he can’t get to sleep
He stares into darkness with eyes open wide
He tosses and turns, and the duvet’s a heap
By the silent red glowing display at his side
He sits up and scratches his head, at a loss
Then suddenly realises what it must be
And I’m brought from the box, reinstated; the boss
For he missed the loud ticking of little old me
Notes
An alarm clock may be an unusual subject for a poem, but that was precisely the brief. Back in the noughties, a writers’ magazine ran a competition inviting poems of up to sixteen lines on the subject of An Alarm Clock. I submitted the above, expecting all of the other entrants to cover the same old-style clock versus LED clock radio conflict, but my effort won and I received a book on poetry.
