Borrow my Stranger

I belonged there in my own silhouette
watching from a distance with borrowed eyes
a puppeteer and marionette married under one disguise

but tonight

thunderdrum heart and lungs make my own pulse dance
with such simplicity that I question my unconsciousness
tonight you are the stranger-guest

but hardly strange, I guess, you filling an emptied memory
standing on a shadow that was infinitely there
tiptoeing in and out of my cerebral cocoon without
disturbing the other dreams afloat

you employ the mystery I was satisfied with picking up
like a black silk bundle, a tin lunchbox, a moon
as my eyelashes kissed

Boy and Sun

Oh clay streets, push my feet to run away
In my small chest I sense the end of day
And dash to the horizon where she lay
Painting the patient sky with saffron ray
And I, the puppeteer of twilight's play
Caress the star, convincing her to stay
        leave and stay
        leave and stay
And leave.  I heave the mystery up high
To crash down into bruising purple sky
Four hundred times, four hundred suns will die
True consequence evades my hungry eye
I tire of the game and say goodbye
Dash home in black, but lost again am I
        when am I
        when am I
This hourglass has finer grains of sand
For here a year has been my hourland
In night, I see no shadow where I stand
No memory of mama's open hand

Forgotten like the flame to which I ran
The boy who raised the sun is now a man

Premature Consciousness

Yesterday morning I awoke before waking, opening my eyes to swim in the dark.  By the time I arrived at work, my eyes were completely fatigued from treading water.

I think I was diving for dreams.  I haven't found many lately.

An Epic Dream from 11.09.10

I.
destination is undecided
our backs face the city
from our pockets we collect six dollars
and our thumbs to hail a taxi
red tail lights gleam against gray ground
                             we are gone

in each others laughter and
the scent of the same shampoo
lost             and losing track of time
until a nickel or dime
or well penny wish will not save us

savings beyond spent
one hundred twenty owed
to a stranger
we ask for amnesty
he pardons kindly
never pauses or slows the
   syncopated love song
hummed by four tires to the highway


II.
night falls         like black sand
the man behind the wheel stops for fuel
at a station that is open but abandoned
out of the car he comes into the backseat
and lamb is wolf     

chaos
 
     stop      help        sharp  hit
           hands   lips  teeth   demand
                                      
  
     stop                    sharp hope
     see knife    
           hands           flash hit
                help             there is crimson

destination    undecided
our backs face the city
blood neither mine nor yours   
no taxi can be hailed
to pacify the crescendo of sirens
I turn the ignition
red tail lights gleam
                          we are gone


III.
at the top of a mountain range
salted with snow and peppered
with tourists and suicide notes
I park and realize the corpse is you
lift you in my arms and walk over the edge
you were gone and so am I

but something goes wrong
with this something going wrong already
you are feather light and I colossal
collide with cutout mountain triangles
wrinkling the earth until i fall without you
through a sea that used to be sky
I dive up to foreign air
gasp and fall to breathe the water
and gone is now here
and gray lights gleam
and day is second is eternity

Lucid Acid

We shared a long kiss, and for the first time, it was sour.
Not the figurative our-love-is-dead sour, but the literal you-ate-dead-grapefruit sour.  You had the higher ground and I was struggling against gravity to evade acidic saliva.

Despite the taste, I still loved kissing you and waited for the moment to end before informing you.  In another part of the same dream we were laughing and running through winding tunnels of color until we found a place where no one could see and we could be ourselves.  You smiled at me.

Out of nowhere, Matt Lang appeared at the tunnel's opening.  We had been followed.  This wasn't the first time Matt had walked unannounced/uninvited into tonight's subconscious belly, and I remember shaking my head at him and thinking, Next time I see you in the waking world, I'm gonna get you back for ruining my otherwise romantic dream.

Literal

She finally asked me.

War and Culture

Last night I was in a theater, classic, red waterfalls of velvet.

During the performance I felt a sting on my leg and heard

the people around me in pain, ducking from rapidfire.

On my way to the floor I was shot in the side. 

I crawled as far away from the gunshots as I could before

blacking out.  When I awoke

all of the bodies had been taken outside to military trucks

and I was alone.  I stood 

and I was alive.

I climbed onto the rooftop of the theater 

into a sea of buildings

stepping from one rooftop to another

to escape.