Information for Sleepwalkers

you know not what but that something is utterly wrong

in this state of mind where peace is a fallacy

and where the bird who waited all summer in the too hot

scant shade of a leafless tree for her sallow eggs to hatch

missed the bus, missed the homework,

swam the water, crushed by the wave,

rollerblades outside the gym, where the ex lover said a prayer

and the word you couldn't think of held in the arms/hands

of your crush who held it to her chest with your palms and said,

I am sorry, but I cannot.

A dream is a funny thing, like a fan with no air

weightless spokes spinning on the ceiling pushing

nothing, but a breeze whips through anyway

with a message one way or another: you are doomed

to a life chomping on ahead to the greater good/gift

adventure 'round every turning dancing spinning smile

; or to a life that will end in just the way it began: black

silence with no memory, a panic when we remember

the folly, the fodder for a fatal flash; one way or another

we do not know.

What this means is there is no beam: from god,

from the little neon orange pill, from the light in the park where you had your first drink,

from your headlights into the misty dark, a deer waiting 'round

the corner of your twirling mind; from this sitting body;

from morning pages, your artist date stood up again;

it's all too real, but just a dream, the optimist has just one

advantage: the sadness assumes eternity,

–or at least duration–when nothing lasts too long at all

let alone forever.