sleeping with poetry

i fell asleep
listening to an old scratchy
record
of walt Whitman
reciting his poetry,
Emily came
next, then frost,
then William blake.
the sleep grew deeper
with each poem.
T.S. Eliot made me snore,
and frost made
me turn over,
looking for the cold
side of the pillow.
i scratched hard at my
head
with e.e. cummings.
Sylvia and sexton though
stirred me into
bad dreams,
as did Bukowski and Ginsberg.
but i was getting somewhere,
closer and closer to home.
Philip Larkin
woke me up,
as did Ignatow
and
Collins. Oliver rest
her soul, gave me hope.