After dark —-
A city park —-
There runs the thing
That comes to life
By night.
Caged in stillness
Through sunlit hours.
Its night persona
Is blurred movement
Seen only from the
Corner of an eye.
It stays near deep shadow,
Beyond the lamp lit arcs.
Where is it?
No one knows,
But if one were to
Check the cathedral
Spire, you’d find
Only an impenetrable
Void…
until sunup.
On a hike,
I come upon a tree
Raised up on its roots,
As if in mid-stride --
A long, cartoonish stride
That stretches across the trail.
But the tree doesn't stir --
No matter how quietly I wait;
No matter how long I wait.
Oh, how I wish to catch the tree
As it flees.
The days of riches are now behind.
I think I thought I lost my mind --
It fell into a deep, dark hole
When my severed head took a roll
Up to the lip, over the edge,
Falling -- I took a solemn pledge:
That my skull drop so straight and true
To hit bottom and rip straight through
To the other side.
Right-side-up or upside-down?
The flooded country becomes
a mirror world.
I spin in float
on a coracle boat --
mind fuzzy,
orientation unclear.
I feel I could flip,
and not take a dip,
but be righted
upside-down,
in the world beyond.
Waking to a world in which
Space & Time misbehave:
Shapes slump,
Even melting into pools,
Oozing to flatness, then
Over the edge and
Into nowhere.
Time moves in riverine fashion:
Rushing in the chokepoints
And lazing in the wide plains.
Though still flowing
Inexorably and unidirectionally.
The illusion tries
To reveal itself,
But who can understand...
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
Be not afeard: the isle is full of noises,
Sound and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That, if I then had wak'd after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me; that, when I wak'd
I cried to dream again.
NOTE: In The Tempest, Act III: Scene 2, Caliban speaks these words to Stephano and Trinculo.
woke up,
stitched up;
something growing
deep within
inside /
outside
what strange hell
is this?
what's this box i
built within my brain:
old ideas keeping
out the light
i read a story,
made a movie --
all within my mind,
but something grew out
that i couldn't comprehend
There you sit in a boxless box -- unmoving, but thinking about moving. Then, stretching one trembling hand out to its fullest extent, you feel fingers press into nothing, but a hard kind of nothing.
The doorless door was painted on
a vacant building’s wall.
It stood cartoonish and shabby,
crooked, and far too small.
I peered around the vacant room
behind that concrete wall:
nothing but dusty detritus —
of broken bottle brawls.
Later that night, after I’d binged,
I came back past that way.
The door was now thrown wide open.
And what was on display?
Into those higher dimensions,
I had a fateful view.
There was cage after cage of me
in an odd human zoo.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 