floating and leaving no trace
judas iscariot popped up
in my dream
offered me seven bucks
to watch her son in the morning
because he had the chicken pox
and she had to work
i felt bad because
i knew she couldn’t afford
to pay me
not even seven dollars
she cried when i gave her
the damp, worn bills back
and i got the feeling
that she hated me
for it as she walked away
sobbing in torn fishnets
late for her shift in the warehouse
my chair dreams me
a reflexive twitch of a wooden
post-arboreal consciousness
thought creates gravity creates time
to fall down the well
but the chair sustains me
projects me
a watery hologram
in the nearest fog bank
this chair is a hand
shoved up my back
limbs animating
you know who
to blame
so
in the dream you have
eyes made of full moons
and glossy lips
in daylight
and under fluorescents
your skin wrinkles where
youth has flattened out
on a face already carved
into planes and
where the skin has stretched
from too much
self-imposed forced smiling
half-lidded
you lean forward
–the kiss clumsy–
though your mouth looks wet
i feel every line
every dry crack
in your lips
they compress against my own
the softness gone
like air from a deflated balloon
the dream doesn’t let
me taste you
dream-me thinks
ah, you are getting older
——
hat tip to C of Optional Poetry, and this poem in particular
what is this place–
some kind of dorm
prep school, college?
filled with debris of an old life
this place is unfamiliar in ways that
reveal the lie
of the illusion of memory
here, a set of tibetan prayer flags
piles of books without titles
and so many toys
all things i have never
specifically handled
touched or
loved
the room buzzes with people
a handful of them long dead
every one interested
in helping me clean
scavenging things they want
from my old life
in a rush to get this room ready
for the next inhabitant
dragging objects packed or not
down concrete stairs
to where a moving truck
already stuffed full
awaits
shoppers draw near the scene
–a cosmic garage sale–
offering money
or just taking what they want
impossibly in the room
and on the ground
at the same time
the more i pack the more i discover
items still unclaimed
a box full of glass eyes
coins from foreign lands
an old handheld game
i should feel some kind
of attachment
yet only the dead give me pause
an overwhelming sense
of futility mixed with exhaustion
washes over me
i peel back carpet
and find a rotted wood floor
i have never seen
in the dream, we drive
the radio buzzes
we must be in europe
because you are at the wheel
and you are on my right
you laugh
your smile burns
blindness inducing white
an atomic bomb going off
each time you open your mouth
like a fridge
the door opens
the light comes on
the door closes
the light goes off
inside, when it works,
when it does its job,
it is dark
it is cold
all movement ceases
everything is preserved
especially the rot
i don’t know the meaning
of dreams anymore.
i raise my hands but there is no
parting of the clouds.
i tried automatic writing
once. i let the other
take over. scribbles and cries–
i don’t know. the meaning
may be buried under the ground
struggling, but ready to bloom.
or is it just the decay
of dreams? anymore,
i find that it doesn’t matter.
i don’t need to understand
how the automatic door works.
i pretend to use the force.
i raise my hands.
it obeys, and opens.
i find that there are still
surprises left to be surprised by,
and maybe one more
parting of the clouds.
——
for
the secret keeper
Weekly Writing Prompt #42
MEANING | RAISE | CRY | DREAM | GROUND
your hand is covered in dream
wet protein
all a body needs
running down
your finger
to the curve of your wrist
i dream of tracing that line
with my tongue
licking it salty clean
but you’re already
washing clean
of the whole affair
on the blank line sign your name
trace over the letters
written before
with your hand
——
–there were horses in the dream
what does that mean?
-what color were they?
–black horses, riding through
a grave yard
-i think you should be more
worried about the cemetery
than the horses
–seriously, what do they mean?
-horses are about power and passion
dark horses sometimes are about
dark passions, things you shouldn’t
want
–why a cemetery?
-something coming to an end
or your deviant passions
causing an ending
–you are so full of shit
-it’s not my dream
——
i dream of cracking teeth
wake with an aching jaw
sure that my mouth is full
of broken bits of bone
awash in frothy blood
this news is old
and my eyes cloud
milky and cold
the silence loud
Is this a dream that’s spinning,
Twisting, running through my head?
A dream of you where I can’t make out
Anything you’ve said?
I follow you from room to room
Through silent moonlit halls,
Out one final courtyard door
Where rain just falls and falls.
I look across the garden
And see you standing in the weeds
Water rushes down between our legs
As if we both were reeds
Bent beneath the shower’s weight,
Buoyed by the stream.
Your mouth is moving silently
In this dream within a dream.
I reach out to take you
And hold you to my chest
And press you up against my skin
Until there’s nothing of you left.
I feel you pounding in my ribs
And throbbing in my blood.
I hear you singing in my ears at last
As I surrender to the flood.
Words and Feathers 