Gravitas

Strains restrain the streaming lines in my brain
repeat the refrains of the words scrolling through
the blasted remains segued like a crossfade, this
is English remade,
raw, unmade, repaid.
misunderstood, misused
like grammar, frequently abused
forget being brief, talking with your
hands, elegance demands that you stand before
your judgement, countering with reprimands
is this where you shall stand? Defend your
definitive state, posturing to reinflate that you
are, in fact, the expertise that defines release-
are you complete, did you say it succintly, is this
necessary to repeat, be replete, pretend confidence
reposiution your stance, this is Webster's show
go get your hat and dance.

A waking dream, Point of View, Harper's Ferry, September 19th 2016

I awoke to the gray soft cotton wisps surrounding the house
the silence of slumber over the foliage, the wisps spriting
the shallows between the trees, like teasing ghosts
tendrils snaking throughout my memories, once upon
a dream I walked down the side of this mountain of
thought, watching in the places where the mist has
been brought, like the leaves fallen from the branches
the mazes of webs where these mysteries are caught.
I am akin to the pleasures of the spirits that haunt this
northern wood. All that I am, all that I would want to be,
all that I was before I came here under the veil, under
the hood, the cover of night that slips away in the invisible
dawn, the secrets of starlight, the placement of the moon
from the wells of midnight, the water of life is drawn. I walk
awake as my body sleeps on the cotton sheets. I pull the blanket
of the darkness around my shoulders, the chill is in the air, I
count the meteors falling, their bright flames as if they're calling
down to me, come home, fair child, there is no rest for you down
deep in the shadowy lands, be gone from those forgotten places.

This is what a Dream Feels like.

The desert streams by in flashes of memory and wind
softly seeming, the hair on my arms moves in the currents
the idea of standing in motion, the semi-satisfactory momentum
the balance disturbed, the awkward hint of absurd notion.
The darkness rises, the fall of stars out of the night
the dream of sleep, resting in between the phases of moonlight
casting shadows down onto the landscape like the shattering
cacophony of rain, drum beating rhythm in repetitive strains
wracking the the calm that once was to be found in my brain.
Am I that remains?
The sun kisses the beach, the water rolls in until the two meets
can anything so smooth ever be just as sweet, infinitely complete
I feel the need for flight, for the vibrations that come with speed
as feet find the air, the meaning of words, the prophecies to hear
the writing coming off the wall, ideas to random to find purchase to
catch, berthing on the rocks, the touch of iron strikes sparks
tiny glows adrift in flight, burning like drops of fire floating away
out of sight, the return to the soft regular grains woven into the bed
sheets, the place between I and my lover come to meet, soft,
willows, the duplicity of another sad sweet refrain as the song plays
out to the ripples fading away down into the abyssal deep.
I return once again to the memory of sheep.