The Dreams You Can Taste

The Dreams You Can Taste

Some say that, if you listen hard enough

you can hear when other people’s dreams cause cancer.

All they ask is a blank piece of paper

and a smart phone to steer her by

to look deep into the psyche for cupid’s answer.

Now awakened from a dream within my mother’s dream

like some nowhere man drifting aimless downstream

falling fully formed from Lennon’s scream.

Jumbled amongst his sheets, wringing wet with sweaty

tongue matted to the tangled taste of pillow.

Shaking, thrown awake by some vile Angel’s kiss

where Arthur’s still ensnared Merlin now insists

on singing songs half remembered from The Abyss.

She exists in our dreams now. Barely shocked awake.

Lionness. Poem in my heart. What of you?

You were there, of that I am certain,

the milk in your breasts giving life to my son

but only in a mirror, rear viewing you towards the left of my vision

the result of a young, brief union. Moving on.

I saw England, captured and fixed by stagelight,

limelight laughing, as her car overturns, takes turns and turns about

giving her barely time to shout and the blood will out.

Oh, lover, you think cartwheeling with you didn’t hurt,

my face with yours ground to nothing but dirt?

The librarian years spent dustily researching three times why

when all you did was crash and die,

even before you knew how to Google it.

The boys you kissed, the lives you risked, the angels wasted

our dreams of future bliss before they were tasted.

Pulling away from the wreckage, another face

lies smiling on a hospice bed, breathing shallow.

Skin sallow yellow, like bitter tallow.

He grasps my hand the candle flickers in haste.

He mouths love and I strain to hear, slowly paced.

The music once played, the lost games recalled,

the Angels have us here enthralled,

you settle back with blanket eyes,

to watch dark gathering clouds in the skies.

And Angel, why do you blush and rush to kiss

then disappear into memories’ mist?

Oh yes, we sat and talked. You took my hand.

Brushed off the debris and showed me dry land.

Released me like some rocket to orbit your star,

then told me I’d strayed off course too far.

The spell was broken, the dream was gone,

now set the joysticks for the heart of the sun,

where Lennon had already faced the starting gun.

Yes. Some say that, if you listen hard enough

you can hear when other people’s dreams cause cancer.

But others look deep and search for the answer.