Category: Dreams

Docked

a stationary ship is the embodiment of tragedy
built for long journeys, Christened with names like
Wind Dancer and Carpe Diem, tethered to the dock
–seizing nothing

as much a fixture as landlocked houses
and roads that wind through every place
but never move. wouldn’t it be something
to see the road drive away?

how many of us are stuck, built to wander
a much bigger world?

I’m nothing like that boat
bobbing and bobbing in one place
with only the changing sky above me
and the changing earth below, tethered
to my life

some things are made to stay in one place

I’m a tree that dies where it stands
taking roots and growing old as my canopy spreads
holding the landscape within my branches
that’s what it means to be a tree


Moon Series 2018 – Day 22

Waxing Gibbous (almost full) – 10:00 p.m.
10/22/18

maybe I’m tired of writing about the moon
maybe I’ve forgotten how to sit still and be alone
maybe I’m terrified of my own quiet mind
reflection leads me down the dark trails
where nostalgia is as sharp as this frigid autumn night

the moon may as well be the sun or a strange planet
or a dream you told me about once
when your hands were small enough to fit into mine
and nightmares scared you

that’s when time felt the most real
and we invented a special place where you could go
filled with warm woods, bright water
and a cabin brimming with stuffed animals
a place built from smoke and memory
a place that kept you safe from bad dreams
a place whose entrance was guarded by dreamcatchers

why not meet me there?
now you can save me from my own bad dreams

Water Buffalo

you’re flying
soaring
launched from the back
of water and beast
its slow soak
is your springboard
catapulting you beyond
the scope of my freedom
beyond ropes, gates, fences
signs with red X’s
your freedom
is hot air on nakedness
liquid landings
pure joy
and I thought I knew freedom

Why the ocean speaks

Once, I understood
(before the years piled on)
leaving me in mid-life, bereft

the ocean seems empty and endless
but it’s an illusion
a paradox

who knows why the water is so compelling?
maybe it resonates within us,
speaks to the place
buried deep in our DNA
to those simple cells
that called the water home

maybe the ocean yearns for us
like our bodies yearn
for a lost limb
aching for the piece that’s gone

I’m exploring the shape of infinity
(it’s not enclosed)
it’s wide open
it’s the vast, unfathomable blue
of an ocean stretched across the globe

it contains every bit of us
including our arrogance
ground to sand beneath the waves

Lucid

When I fall from consciousness,
the fading imprint of the day
is waiting behind my eyes
I peer into that space,
hungering for the emptiness,
imagining you, a hair’s breadth away
But I can never find you
though I search until sleep descends
unmooring me with a cascade
of nonlinear thought
a false promise of freedom
from the heavy boundaries of time
as my brain reshuffles,
playing games with space and memory
I know my spirit is widest then
my awareness spread eagle
my arms, gone, yet reaching