Dreambox

To shed this flesh

like pudding spilling from a bowl,

become a bone jumbled frame

that folds neatly into a box.

A dark unpierced

by scraping hands,

finding the peace

of walls inside walls

-an onion adding layers 

or is that a pearl?

A scar of gristle

shrouding the shrapnel

of old nights tunneling

to the cracked and bleeding surface?

And a scream pleads,

unheard outside these walls

in the leafy streets

where I felt the sun on my cheek

and a breeze on my back

and the squeak

of my rubber-soled shoes

was loud.

And the taste

of this morning’s coffee

and last night’s cigarettes

is a metallic trace

that only fades away

with sleep. 

Is the plan, the purpose

the same? a reach

that clutches air?

Does it matter

in the long run, short run,

it’s all running

of one kind or another.

Just the sweep of the second hand

or planets spinning through the void

and isn’t the truth to be found

in the pause between the breaths

when the motion, the swing,

the pendulum stops?

I. don’t. know.

So I take my hands

away from my eyes

and it’s still a morning in July

and the datura outside my door

smells sweet and the mockingbirds

are singing and I hear a faint voice

on a distant television;

a carefully structured voice

created in a studio

to calm and cheer or horrify,

depending on what’s needed

for the moment or the day. 

Better do some laundry,

do some thinking,

do some not thinking

find someplace inside this body

without this body,

a kernel, a cocoon,

a tearless, cheerless peace,

a dissolving, clockless sleep.

If that were true,

I wouldn’t need to write it,

try to conjure that landscape

uninhabited by memory, dreams,

sweetness and pain.