Sleep and the Dream

If I put lavender under my pillow
will I dream of scented gardens and wake
with buds of thought burgeoning forth?

Or will I become pure of heart as I sleep,
dream of unicorns and virgins,
and lose the ability to dissemble.

Let night rest like snow on my lashes,
harbinger of blindness, stealing colour
from vision.

Imagery confined to monochrome
becomes a dance in line and edge,
defined by illumination, or dissolved
in darkness.

Castenada said to walk the warrior way
we must seek control in dreams.
Find hands and guide them, till lavender

becomes a field of flower shapes
blue and purple against grass,
snow a geometric lace of ice
entrapping rainbows.

Separation

As I was cleaning my bathroom,
I found a place beneath the doorframe
where two edges of vinyl touched.

I’ve cleaned this floor many times
and never noticed that line before.

Funny, so often we don't see
how completely two have joined
until they come asunder.

Patience

I'm tired of waiting
waiting
for the epiphany
through the mailbox,
the knock at the door.

Open your ribs now
and show me -
is there really a star
pulsing
in that bloody sarcophagus?

post apocalypse

My life is what I've made it -
I do not recognise it.
I've fallen between the borders of dream and reality
where both are become the same.

I wake every morning to the dreamscape
and walk through daylight when I close my eyes.
I'm curious and suspicious of the letter box,
will it contain a million dollar prize,
or notification of ten thousand in unpaid taxes.
If mail addressed to me is pushed through the slot
does this mean I'm real?

I cling to people as something tangible,
diamond-shaped slats of sunlight when I close my eyes.
I see people I loved, who've died,
all the time. I miss them, but even more
I miss the people still alive
who I'm forbidden to see any more.

I don't understand this.
It makes my relationships unfinished
like the poems in my notebook -
one and a half strophes trailed off
into blank white space,
like all the projects I lost interest in
along the way - like Nicholaus Steno -
easily bored, restless.

I have three books I'm halfway through.
My mother said I never finish anything,
but I'll finish them all.
There's only one book I've never finished.

If my mother was wrong about that,
could she have been wrong about other things?
Maybe I'm not 'lazy,' 'useless,' 'dirty,'
'like my father' after all?

If my mother's definition of me isn't true
then all the parameters of my life are shifted.
I must redefine myself:
set boundaries, get spiritual,
become self-actualizing, have a career
with achievable goals,
read horoscope daily. I'm 48
and still don't know who I am
or what I want to do with my life.

I feel time pressing against me
always. Maybe
if I go back to bed and close my eyes
my dreams will become tangible
and all that I have lost,
all the loved who've moved past my reach,
will return to me.

Twin

There's simplicity
in the twinning of contours.

This line follows that curve
until we are two,

mirror images - me
of you,

neither sorrow nor joy, in this
rare view.

The pearl buttons of your spine
open into mine

doubly fine
we replicate the meaning of 'true.'