SLEEPING WITH ONE EYE OPEN

Unmoved by what the wind does,
The windows
Are not rattled, nor do the various
Areas
Of the house make their usual racket–
Creak at
The joints, trusses, and studs.
Instead,
They are still. And the maples,
Able
At times to raise havoc,
Evoke
Not a sound from their branches
Clutches.
It’s my night to be rattled,
Saddled
With spooks. Even the half-moon
(Half-man,
Half half dark), on the horizon,
Lies on
Its side casting a fishy light
Which alights
On my Floor, lavishly lording
Its morbid
Look over me. Oh I feel dead,
Folded
Away in my blankets for good,
and
Forgotten.
My room is clammy and cold,
Moonhandled
And weird. The shivers
Wash over
Me, shaking my bones, my looses ends
Loosen,
And I lie sleeping with one eye open,
Hoping
That nothing, nothing will happen

Strand always seems to talk about how either he is disrupting everything around him or everything around him is disrupting him. Within "Sleeping With One Eye Open", he is worried of what might dirupt or harm him. He hopes that "nothing will happen", and therefore relays an underlying meaning within the poem. He is scared of chance, scared of something new. Strand uses one word lines to relay important words and allow their meaning to be absorbed by the readers. Perhaps one of the most important one worded lines is "Forgotten." Does he want to truly be forgotten? Does he really want nothing to happen? Or is he just scared of the outcome.