Category Archives: dreams

Are my feet off the ground?

With an inkling of joy & brightness, I’ve experienced what seem to me to be the figurative visitations of angels.  Chance encounters, while out in the marketplace or pumping gas, where a person with an almost visible soul would happen to look my way and smile brightly.  That small gesture has brought forth from within me the best I have to offer, and, out of my tired and sad eyes, I try to return the same.

This has happened many times within my last ten years, and always with a different person.

Once, on one of the very worst days of my life, something passed through me and made lighter the burdens of my mind.  Again, a visitation of sorts.  It did not involve a person, but still I had the distinct feeling that someone was telling me to be of good cheer, for this will pass.

There was an afterglow from this that lasted, and the foretelling was, of course, true.

It’s said that the soul wanders during the dream state.  Some dreams, for me, have involved feelings of being lost or directionless.  Others have encompassed a bottomless loneliness.  One was a bright and lucid dream, in which a cherished Other looked with warmth into my own soul and physically held me.  I woke up crying.

Then there are the ones centered  around the magical ability to fly or levitate.  There was a memorable episode where I was attending an important cocktail party in a palatial mansion.  We were all dressed formally.  I felt ridiculously out of place, like a Mr. Bean in a tux.  I then did my dream-thing and began to levitate, swimming horizontally through the rooms with a grin on my face.  Seemingly, no one noticed, and this irked me.  So, I slowed down, waved, and tried to make eye contact, all the while shouting “ARE MY FEET OFF THE GROUND?”  Figure that one out.  I should tell my psychologist about these things.

 

Blackstars

Through a half inch chink in my prison of warm rubble, I stare.  Gluttonous for the light. I screamed, at first.  Now, breath is shallow and rationed.  In thirty minutes, I will manage a gooselike honk.  I am held motionless and squeezed in painful pincers of crazy two-by-fours, in steel and glass.  I squat.  I smell of myself.  Never been so familiar with my own kneecaps.  One arm, my best one, captive by a deadly weight.  The clockwork beams coming through my spyhole show me flesh, so purple. I thirst.  Three nights I count, and I am fading.  These nights have been clear, and I see a star selection.  For a while, the burning smell permeated all.  Now, it is my own effluent and decay.  I babble to myself ….the sad joke is on you now, brother.  You proud atheist.  If there was a Pride Parade for such, you would have been the flag bearer.  You feel like praying now, don’t you?  But you don’t know to whom.  

All of this day, this bright dreamlike day, I see stars too.  They are before me, black spiders pulsing.  Please.

Crazy crazy

I was combing the cat’s hair
he smiled
but the hair began to come off in clumps
soon all there was was skin
and his eye fell out

I had a lemonade stand
on a deserted dusty desert road
a camel rider came by
dismounted and gave me a cactus
I gave him lemonade
and the camel too
once I had the cactus more customers came
but they all brought cactus

at night, I was driving a bumper car
in a closed courtyard
buildings all ’round
my electric pole was connected
to the thunderclouds
I couldn’t get out
so I waited for the lightning

in a waiting room
for military service
we were all shaved
the guy next to me
had very bad jitters
and I had sudden pain in the groin
he pulled out a syringe
looked me in the eye
I nodded yes
and then there was a bad smell

a thing with insect eyes
stood at a lectern
while I was chained to the tree in front of him
the eyes were judging
as it looked at its book then back to me
I hoped for its disapproval
’cause I did not want to go where it was going

under the sea I moved, with gills
fat smiling lips
and lidless eyes
I thought myself King of the coral reef
until a fella with eight arms
begged to differ.

Barricades

I dreamt this morn’ of fences
They’d been put up while I slept
But the fog obscured my senses
And I stumbled ’til I wept

The urge was strong for going on
So I got up and I leapt
O’er barb-ed wire, until the dawn
Its promises had kept

The fog had burnt away from there
The barricades were clear
The wind was passing through my hair
And freedom was so near

“Awake me not”, I prayed to One.
(The Spirit in me now)
“I’m almost there, I’m nearly done”
Then lost the will, somehow.

This thing within my soul has made
The devil grin with glee
He’s scripted well this whole charade
To gloat his victory

Awakened was a new resolve
That I’d not lose the fight
The clock, its circle would revolve
And I’d join the dream next night

Cassandra’s dream

Gerald.  My Gerald, my boy.

I seem to wake on this snowy night, and, my boy, my little boy, you are deeply asleep, but you float in my room.  You are a balloon boy on a string, and, bumbling against the ceiling, you drift toward my open window….why?  why? did I leave it so?

I grab onto your string….ah!  my little boy!…..but you are taken fast out into the night.

I climb out quickly,  something is tugging you away, away.  I hold fast onto your lifeline, and run stumbling out into the cold white.

A seething throng, out of the birch forest, all pale, all living death, all grasping with bony hands, all floating, has come to take you.  

They pull, they pull, they sighingly say you belong with them.

Gerald, your eyes open and you are in fear, my son.

How comes this visitation?   What have I done?

My dear dear boy.  My life.

***

Art by Michael MacRae

Number 16- Shoulders in the sea

On the promontory, in the day,
Alone, I look in idleness.
Gulls circle, their cries a tapestry of the familiar.
But on this day, they swarm.  So many.
And, now, their crude symphony quiets swiftly
into a windblown silence.
Disturbed I am, in my ennui.
A smoky greyness filters all reflection.
The birds, in this cool contrast,
have the aspect and the purpose of carrion seekers.
I see, in this charcoal sea,
lapped over by choppy waves,
what surely are the twin backs of some marine enormity, not of this place.
The buzzards, still in silence,
circle ever more tightly,
but will not land.
The marine things do not move.
From the gloom,
I spy the coming storm, one of immediacy.
The carrion birds disperse, leaving the scene.
For a moment, losing my vision, I cower.
Then I see, in the charcoal sea,
not two beasts, but the shoulders of a drowned giant,
bared by the boiling billows.
As I hold fast to my rock,
the ferocious tempest turns her over,
and the dead face floats,
entangled in the green hair of the sea.

I am overcome.

The girl of his dreams

It’s three in the morning.

He gets up to pee, second time since bed.  Hobbles to the hallway bathroom, then stops suddenly, swallowing a seeming lump in his throat.  Silhouetted against the streetlights of his bay window, there’s a figure sitting on his couch.  His stomach jumping as if in a fast elevator descent, he closets himself in the bathroom, shutting the door.  He’s scared to even turn on the light switch, but there’s a small night light by his mirror.  This must be one of those lucid dreams I keep hearing about.  Shit, that scared me.  He studies his reflection.  It has an eerie cast in the drowsy glow.  A sheepish expression after his sudden retreat from the remnants of a dream.  Takes a leisurely pee, makes sure he’s well drained this time.  Opens the door and looks foolishly up the hall.

She’s still there.  He knows it’s a she from the long tresses and the manner of sitting.  She reaches out an arm and motions him to come.  She has no visible features except her eyes, showing dimly but tantalizingly, as if in the weakened beam of a dying flashlight.
A thrill of fear and excitement races down his spine, and he feels immobile.  In a body cast with an ant colony.  No good.  Can’t hide.  Go there.  Come on, lift the lead weights.  No, go back to bed Joe.  Wake the wife.  He’s half turned, groping for the wall, when he hears the hissing (from their cats?), and feels an almost physical pull to the couch by the picture window.

All is still darkness, backlit by the streetlights projecting a heavy fog, hints of tarnished glints suggested by the familiar:  his dirty ashtray, a coffee cup and spoon left on the end table.  And now, to complement those charnel-house eyes, there’s a spreading disembodied smile.  Oh God, he thinks.  My own Cheshire Cat.  Not knowing and not remembering how, he is beside her on the cold couch.  She does not look in his direction, but faces front.  Stunned, and at the apex of his fear, he feels her clammy hands upon his cheeks, turning his head to hers.  The eyes, dimly radiant, show nothing, like coins laid on a dead thing.  The left is half closed, and twitches, shuttering the silverness.  Some moans escape her, but in a singsong tone.  His nerves are as taught as catgut strings, and she is playing him, playing him.

Able to speak at last, he mouths the first of one thousand questions….Who…How…Why?

SSHHHHHH……You called me.  You did, you know.  Still she grips him, as within a vise.

He faints, or sleeps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That is where his wife finds him.  On the couch, in the newborn position.  She asks why.
Bad dream, bad dream, dear.  That’s all.
She feels funny and strange, because of the way he looks, so shaken, and because he has never sleepwalked as long as she has known him.

The morning brings the workaday world back to him.  Today’s gonna be a tough one at the office.  My goddamn presentation, after three hours of sleep?  Off he goes, finally out of that body cast.  When it’s all done with, his friend Sasha whispers to him that the boss wants to see him.  Funny, the way she puts her hands upon his head, then gives him that sly little wink.

Saturday morning blessedly arrives for Joe.  He doesn’t get out of bed until eleven, and his wife awaits him with a kettle already boiled.  “You’re so nice”, he says, as he drinks the hot cup of his namesake.

Marlene says to him, as she’s reading the morning paper, “Joe, wasn’t there a Sasha at your work?”

He grips the table and spills the coffee.

Wrong tense, Marlene.  Please let it be someone else………….

number fifteen

A green caterpillar, stripy, with soft padded sticky feet.
It twirls and caresses the finger, then drops thirty storeys.
A shattered shard of mirror, six inches from point to base.
Tempted am I to challenge its edge.
A fish net, made of basket-woven reeds, with a long greasy handle.
It holds water too long. Stupid. Where is fish?
(a slimy smile, coin-eyed, with tendrils, hovers just below the ripples)
A tiny tiny nematode, directionless, inchworming under my microscoptic eyes.
How many have I, down, down in the warm bottom of the bowel?
Children of the tape worm.

All of these have come to me
in the wild eyed apprehension of semiconscious sleep.
The sweetest of dreams to thee.

 

#11 Dream

I went to the new bakery in town.
It had an opening soon sign on it for two years.
Today was the day.
It has a very small door,and is dimly lit inside.
Bells ring as I enter. I think I am the first.
High ceiling. All wood everywhere.
Ship’s deck planking for a floor.
Sculptured gargoyles leering from on high.
Three sweaty individuals are there, with strange smears upon their aprons.
One is conducting the permeating music, and holds a cleaver.
One is behind the glass counter of baked delights, and looks at me askance.
One is at the cash desk, rubbing his hands in anticipation,
beeswax candles adorning his neck.
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.
I point at a tart, ask the baker what it is.
He looks down his long nose and says, as if I should know,
That is our Montessori. I say is that something like mincemeat?
He spits, bows mockingly, and goes for a coffee break.
The singsong tunes increase in pitch, the cleaver is juggled.
The candlestick maker lights the beeswax wicks
and sets his hair on fire, smiling.
I hear and feel a deep thrumming rumbling beneath the floor.
Then a hard Boom, and the floorboards lift a little.
We’ve been hit! says the candle man.
He makes the sign of a gun to his head, then collapses into ashes.
Out from the back room glides a little red haired boy, sweeping.
He motions to me, so I bend down and listen.
He says come back tonight.  They’re not here then.
I make to leave, and the surly baker throws a tart at me.
In the darkness of 2am, I jump into my little car and head back up.
It’s a pedal car, from when I was five.
All is pitch black on the street, but there’s a light coming from the keyhole.
I blow into it, and the door clicks open.
The kid is still sweeping, but motions me to the back room.
Hanging from the vaulted ceiling, there’s a block and tackle.
Attached to the business end is a giant steel claw,
like the ones from the win every time glass cases full of prizes from kiddieland.
It holds the body of something or someone, in a cocoon of sheer pantyhose.
A trap door is underneath, and the kid opens it.
The thrumming and booming increases as he lowers the sack down into the hole.
Then, more obscene noises from beneath.
Up comes the metal claw, minus its bag.  The noises stop.
It’s cheaper this way, he says.

 

abstinence is more fun

me and me buddy
we are twenty one
we have freckles like Alfred E. Neuman
we are atop a kids’ slide
we climbed the long long long ladder
with the knurled steel steps
it’s a double we are excited
we grip the railings stand up
look almost straight down
upon the gleaming tin
heat waves rise from it
we see at the bottom through clouds
perfect miniature villages and farmland
we turn toward each other eyes wide
i’ll race you we say
and down we go
helter skelter
Godzilla and Rodan
god, we are so high

me and me little brother
inside a mile long china shop
locked in and vacant
it’s darkling outside
all the walls ceiling floors
are just cabinets and drawers
we cry a little we wanna go home
strange knocking sounds strange sweeping sounds
a grotesque shadow moves rapidly around
floor ceiling walls
it scares us before we even know what it is
we try the drawers
we open cabinets, trash the china
find the cabinet has a back door
Narnia? or escape?
we go through, feet first
we’re in another long room, empty concrete, one candle
at its end a door with sunlight and green plants
we look back through the glass cabinet
and there’s the face
black robed black hat
slowly sweeping
it is the Season of the Witch.