Senseless Dream

One night I slip and fall inside a dream:

Here people sigh, they groan, they shake the trees,

but branches never swing and nothing falls.

Until at last I hear a throbbing scream,

then stars begin to drop like fruits. The breeze 

dissolves, the blood congeals, and roar the squalls.

And then I notice how the senseless lights

are rolling into seas, with grace and ease,

but stay afloat, illuming sleeping dolls

that dream this dream their lonely endless nights—

morn' calls!

Sound Asleep

I’m the guy, you’re the girl

I am the bivalve and you the pearl.

I the habit, you are the choice.

I’m the lips, you’re the voice.

I the muscle but you the pulse.

You’re the desired, I the impulse.

You the shepherd and I the sheep.

You’re the dream and I sound asleep.

Human Thoughts Before Departure

Fluorescent lights reflecting off the floor

Painted with jet-black but faded arrows 

That point

Not at the jasmine-scented night

Leaning against the giant glass

But soothing lies beyond guarded doors

Flyers overhead asleep in the sky

Flyers afloat with nothing—naught—to flap

Going nowhere quicker

On greedy dreams and fiery throats 

Metal swallowing beaks and souls 

Inside fluorescent lights flicker

Some Nights I Fear Going to Sleep

I don't recall my dreams, at least
not the narrative: Saw a priest
wearing a cape, fluorescent green,
and warning me that West's now East.

Another dream: A vile disease;
it kills none but weakens the knees,
so people crawl along the streets
and weep sometimes and hug the trees.

Some nights I fear going to sleep;
stay up for hours just counting sheep.
My day's odd but I make it mean.
At night meaningless terrors creep. 

Come Find Me

Wrote you a nameless note, said I love you.
Is that enough
for you to come find me?
Perfumed it with the scent of freshly picked
weeds and stale tears. I'm hiding,
will you one day soon come and find me?
Never sent you the letter. It'd said I'm lonely.
Crossed out very and always. Crossed out I. Then
Tore it. Burned it. Spread the ashes. I feel—
Won't you come and find me?
Was always good at hide-and-seek.
Once I hid myself so well even
I gave up trying to find me.
Like a shadow that has lost the sun,
a dream with the dreamer dead, an echo, a memory,
a place gone and a time past, a swamp—
if you are a river, flow this way sometime, find
me.

Myriad Dreams

In my dreams Plato practices Pilates.
Nietzche eats cheddar cheese with Chinese chai tea.
Heidegger's a haggard egghead who's hungry.
Kant can count in Catalan and Cantonese.

The dead. But grieve they not.

The dead. But grieve they not.
And tears would drown their rot.
But us that breathe must grieve.
And us that grieve should breathe.
Inside I’m dead, shall never weep.
And fearing dreams I never sleep.
In fluid pain, I'm not afloat.
The desert in me needs no boat.
Alone and stiff, my island dry.
My stars appear blurry and bright.
Tonight the stars I hear them cry.
I dipped my toes in tears from skies
that poured like rain in my own eyes,
into my soul so close to rot,
my body its burial plot.

Good Old Days

Like rice one throws at weddings, fists of ice
Were flung against my own bedroom windows.
I rose in fright, my face drenched in mirrors.
Although I looked the selfsame as before,
That gusty dawn when I woke, I felt old;
As though a crucial threshold had been crossed,
As though was wed to Chronos now, shackled
To pounds of sagging flesh and porous bones.
Back in the good old days my body formed
The (veiled) foundation of my strength, freedom.
The worthless box that held the priceless stone;
The papers of my love letters; scaffolds
To build my dreams, they'd now become gallows.
Back in the good old days I didn't know.

Shelter

I hear the termites still inside my dreams
An aged lady dusted of her sins 
It's summer when her pulses hush and slow
I grieve the shelter, home I'd never know. 

 

Dirty Eyes

I woke up covered all 
In fragments of a dream,
All sticky like the scent of skunks
That sprayed my storybook last night.
—Wash up!  the voices shrieked 
And pushed my head madly beneath
A pool of tears until I drowned 
Again inside another dream.

So tell me whose tears were that soaked 
The leaves I'd flipped through all last night 
With every flutter of lashes so moist.
So speak but make it soft and clean
And hold my hands and smile and joke
And only then describe my nightly scene 
The screens projected on my twitching lids 
The ghastly films my dirty eyes have seen.... 

But What Does It Matter?

What does it matter?  Asking I, at first
on sunny days (my body shivers, aches).
Life's a dream, in death it's enveloped firm—
though over pocket myriad gashes felt.

This letter now I'm living—or am I
more the letter written, rewritten, signed?—
tell me to whom it may concern, and why?
Is life a curse?  Or from the lord, a boon?

If my life's the letter, sung it's my tune;
under glasses, moments noted are runes;
and moments not, are endless landscapes strewn
with blurry ink—a soft inert cocoon
(dark enough to dream of butterflies soon,
common dream of hopeless humans unhealed).

Who's the receiver, postal system, dank
tongue that licks with care the envelopes sealed,
unknown unknowns in heaps, and myths unpeeled.
 
Who am I, the poet, poem, rhythms
and rhymes that hoist the feelings, senses, thoughts?
If received, then tell me: What has mattered?

Paradise

Eagles encircle my paradise. 
Icicles drop from the evergreen,
pomegranates bounce on the trampoline....
Witness the poets: They're paralyzed.