dreams – Aremyfeetofftheground

Rhonda

~ I felt the x-ray blue of ghost bones as you stepped into last night’s silent dream. I knew your glow: the afterimage of my blinding from your sun. Poems I write, so often nondescript, come back to you in the end, and you will never know, my friend, for in your afterlife you wander far.~

Apart

Night splints hold teeth in position,
I believe.

There is a baseless fear of dismemberment,
of awakening without the sum of one’s parts,
like the cave of a missing tooth.

I lie in bed running, and too fast.

Of what do predators dream?

All asunder

In his hurried dream
of effervescence,
of disintegration,
our man had a knowing
that his neglected heart was more than the sum of his parts.

***

Art: Paul Klee, The Man of Confusion, 1939

Disturbed, I nodded . . .

In an anxious stepping dream, a scruffy old pup (three-legged) said “Thank you” into my ear as I held his hand on the stairs. Down a flight (in the waiting room), all of the seats were peopled with cutouts except one that held my brother, arisen. Thrice as real as the cutouts and more real than I, he held my eye and beckoned in silence for me to come near. On his lap was an open book, and he bade me bend down so he could whisper into my ear. “We were adopted”, he said, though I knew it to be false. He pointed to a passage on a page, but I gave it no heed. Leading me by the hand, he took me to a heavy wooden door. The cutouts bowed forward and collapsed. As we opened it, the door creaked as if not having been opened for a very long time. Dust fell upon his cufflinked wrist. Inside, the smell of toast and peanut butter and dirty ashtrays. My In-Laws- Mom and Dad in their threadbare penury, bent over a broken coffeemaker, its circuits spread out on clean linen next to medical instruments. They were crying because they did not know how to repair it. I picked up the scalpel and set to work, but Brother stayed my hand. I nodded, disturbed, while he took it apart completely and built it back in a new design. Mom and Dad looked to each other and smiled, wiping their tears.

In a dim corner, on a doily-clad table, lay the three-legged pup, who looked up and wagged his tail.

***

image credit: http://freshideen.com/dekoration/wanddekoration-deko-ideen/surrealistische-tapeten-design-ideen.html

Dollface

~In my mannequin dream, she walked with a limp and a clack. Lurched toward me with a doppler shift, as sure as a coaster’s chain drive. Her face- a calamine complexion, flytrap lashes, cheekbones of rouge pasties. And I, rooted, felt the come-hither hell of china fingers.~

Rest uneasy

Fell thee asleep with the lights left on.
Apart, hidden safe
in plain sight, ’til now.

When,
by green dawn,
the dark birds of your dreams
come home, once more,
to roost

[Image: J. Heiden Photography]

Square peg

~It is so odd. This placement. To be here at this time. In this gang. It’s a mistake, I think. Not sanguine to the purpose. They are on their way out. I am meant for beginnings.~

*Art by Cole Rise

Mutuals

~Fifty said to Fifty~

Time is growing short, growing cold. Know that i will be with you, all the way to the next time. Be on guard, lest I drift into the lock of sleep. Charge through the night, that you may play in broad day. Put away the fearsome fear, until another year.

A white thing

2:43 a.m. and I get up to pee. There’s only the night light, knee height. I shuffle arthritic, steady the wall, when a white thing bumps my eye like a drifting balloon. In a hissed whisper, “bitch” it says, imploding its albumen, stifling my breath. I don’t have to pee any more.

Unforgettable

Author, I call you.
Explorer and visitor.
Architect of chapters
in the tomes of my dream.