A world like this

November 10, 2016

I have never seen a world like this,

but up steep suburban leaf-trodden streets

is where I continue to go and have gone

in my many lucid dreams before, and still,

even as somewhere, everywhere, we whisper

through the dread-night soft shades of

violet and black, How did we let this happen,

with the violence of so many people

melting, or doing something that

their bodies have never quite had

to do before, so still and motionlessly

writhing and racking them awake

on the inside, as when smoke suspended

above buildings reminds us, humming,

in the morning, that across the road,

there are people still living, still, still,

and a boiler still warming a home.

Dream vision for July

Bodies sprawled as gasping

angels. So cold & blue

they’re almost white. Pink

where flesh meets floor

& glowing with winter: three types

of hard bright drug. We are not talking

about the small humming girls

who misplaced their ghosts

long ago. This is the kind of fable

with wild dogs & foxes

who know flesh from bone. Think

of an epiphany scene with dark

thick blood. This is the difference

between patient & pill. The kind

of nightmare without any

fear of waking. That horrible

fear of waking. We talk

about foxes & all their purples

& whites. We look for answers

in soft city streets. This is how

asylums look to children

with no names. Nothing hurts.

We learn, over time, to care.

At midnight, I become bored

with my world, & walk down

to the shore, & think of the cold

as a lover. The sweet & swallow.

Oh God, I drown myself in it.