Diurnal disbursements

Two night
terrors in a row
and one begins to feel the mixed reality
of day-dreams, what seems
light,
the photosphere,
assembles into bands of time
where body temperature correlates to color
and we are confined to a range,
endlessly scanning.

It seems the sensual burdens never cease,
perpetually sentenced to fixed perception
without the proper nouns, one feels
naked and utterly unequipped to resist
wishes and wherewithals,
comfort zones and one peace of mind.
In our comas, we can only succumb
to this and that-all
that we tell ourselves about infinities.

One often feels a strong momentum,
as if taken
on this ride around the clock, resigned to
eternally count our blessings.
All the nearby ember bodies are following us
and one feels curses, radiant heat, distinctly
a gravitation toward the bonfire sun
where horrors have no dark bodies
in which to hide.

Although, it is never the same as being awake.




Artwork (drawing and watercolor) by Odilon Redon, c. 1903 in[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Wet Dreams

I have been sleeping with the devil, I think.
Those that love me, tell me I'm sick.
I know they are right no matter how hard I try to fight,
to untangle the snarled lines that implicate
the heat of day and deep chasm of night,
He lives there.
At first I wasn't sure it was Him-
being so dark- you know.
After arousing amid a wet,
slimy, stone cold pillow,
my hair plastered to my neck-
strangling me-
two swollen and asphyxiated eyes
on a greenish white face looking at me
in the bathroom mirror,
confirms my satanic suspicions.

The furniture looks the same-set in its ways.
My leaden limbs ache- relentlessly shivering in quakes.
Did the dresser see me
dancing in my delirium-
must have been a dream,
since the coffee table
pleads the fifth, cowering
when asked about the black and blue
marks, bruises on my shins
it lies. No burning desire,
I shiver in icy aloneness,
tossing aside those awake-
turning down and still- not dreaming
while I burned, I feel-
He stares at me lovingly, and I know,
I have been sleeping with the devil.



Image by Henry Fuseli (1741-1825), The Nightmare [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.