Sleeping Crazy in the Full Light of the Moon
There’s bloody little filter in the pane of window glass
that cuts through the wall that looms above the bed
where my dreams are born and live. This pillow,
my head, mattress stressed by unceasing, brilliant
compaction. Every night is too, too often to give
the shallow indentations of hip, shoulder, knee
and ass the release of relaxation that sleep imposes
on all of us.
All of us under a sky, under stars
that cast shadows on cloudless nights and the ocean
of air that stars’ light swims through to us. Cut shares
from the complete mass of humanity, every
segment cut loose both a piece and the whole as well.
Lay out these slices and pound them thin. Let life
entire press like a body on boxed springs until
they slump to cold, viscous clarity. Gather them then
and press them, one by one, into frames and
taking points, press them in to hold one moment clear,
one transparent section of all humanity.
There’s
blood in the little filter that cuts through the wall
that looms above my head. When I dream and
surrender such thought as presses me between
the sheets of this waking world, I lose what’s real.
And magnificent possibility alters to random noise
as if the roiling static of black and white on the screen
of an unfocused TV began to organize to words and
phrases, then sentences and stories. Only to collapse
back into the hiss we hear from out universal
birth.
Moonlight floods me like a generative tide
though it’s sunlight reflected and chilled. Blue steals
through REM-fluttered lids and infects my blood
with all the blood it streams through. If blue
turned toward red in its rush through pained
humanity, I might rest this night. But it will
not be. Blood will be stirred in blue moonlight.
Dreams will hammer at all the muffled doors
and howl like loosed pack dogs through empty
forests, empty city streets. Until the night runs
its own course and the tide ebbs with advancing
day.
Sunlight flays me and my nerves pulse
in their raw wounds. The blood is my own.
Moonlight leaves me - in the bloody tide
that washes the pulsing nerves - lying crazy.