Hard Dreams

In a fight for your life.
He has a knife. Is twice your size.
Determined. You struggle.
There are cuts on your arm
where you have barely escaped.
The blood is yours and the knife
is far to close to your neck
when you bite him like an animal
and you both scream and you wake up.

She is walking away,
and somehow your feet no longer work.
She walks slowly, looking back
with a wistful smile
And you are somehow paralyzed,
no longer the man of action.
Helpless as the dream before.
She is walking away, taking her live with her
and you cannot breathe, and as she disappears
over the ridge, you are not sure you want to
and you wake up.

You remember the boat from Bullfinches Mythology
and a host of B movies you grew on.
Charon poles the boat silently,
a sympathetic expression on his hooded face.
You remember wondering how he does it,
poling the boat so silently. But then you scream
and there is no sound coming from your mouth,
only the occasional drips of water falling
from dark stalactites hanging from the cave’s ceiling,
and you scream again, realizing sound is only
the first thing that will be taken from you.
And you wake up.

It is beautiful. You are at the sea. Waves lap
the shore. The sand is pristine and the temperature
is perfect and there are no clouds,
physical or metaphysical.
The woman you love lies next to you,
sides touching. There is peace there
in the lack of space between you, where
you touch. A certainty in this taste of eternity.
And you decide only one thing can make it
more perfect. A kiss. You lean up on one elbow
and look down at her face. Lean down
and wake up.

It has been a long night of dreams
and you are left only with exhaustion
and a wondering how a mind travels so far
without leaving the room.

About this poem.

Monday night I had too many, too odd dreams. I felt like I had not slept at all. I do not even pretend to know what they meant. A lot like some abstract art (said the abstract artist)

Tom