#421 – WHAT DREAMS MAY COME

/ Poetic Bloomings

To piggyback on Sleepless in Buffalo’s sleep prompt last week, let’s let our dreams inspire our poems this week. Dreams may come as we sleep, or as daydreams. They may be life-long goals. Dr. King had a dream and we honor him for his vision. What are your dreams?

Here’s to sweet dreams.


Marie’s Visitation

Visit with Grandpa

Walking up my street,
I see a man walking toward me.
Aww.  Looks like Grandpa, I think,
knowing it couldn’t be.
As we get closer, there is no mistaking.
Yes, it is Grandpa. 
I don’t want to wake up, and miss out.
He approaches me.
“Grandpa!”
He gives me a hug.
As is nearly always the case when I dream
of the dead, all senses are engaged. 

“Grandpa, what are you doing here?”
He says he came to tell me not to worry about
circumstances that were consuming me. 
Everything would be just fine.

Then he says, “You know I can’t stay.” 
Yes, of course.
I just don’t want to lose him again
so quickly. 

“But I will come back,” he assures. 
He hugs me again, and,
just that quick,
he’s gone.

My long, detailed dream continues.
It seems to last a good portion of the night.

Suddenly, there he is again. 
This time, he doesn’t speak. 
His silence stills me,
while it declares a grand reassurance.

I wake from the dream,
recognizing it hadn’t been merely a dream.

And I smile.
When he said he would return,
I hadn’t realized he meant
that quickly.
That night.
That dream. 

© Marie Elena Good 2023



Walt’s Vision

PERCHANCE TO DREAM…

Night falls clumsily,
tripping over every wink, and blink, and nod.
A nocturnal clod, cohort of the sandman,
deliverer of sleep and nightly nocturnal visions.

My mattress beckons,
soft and trance inducing,
seducing me with thoughts of slumber.
And if I should such sleep require,

do I venture yet to dream?
For my nights used to provide
essential rest for my survival,
but most times I feel deprived of repose

for reasons not so clear
when nightly noises reverberate in my ear.
At times I find myself nodding
off to a place midway between

hibernations and dawning,
third star to the right,
and straight on ‘til morning.
These short catnaps are wonderful things

until my internal timepiece
loses moments to a snoring snooze.
But, fall asleep I do!
This creative soul tosses and turns

in Technicolor dreams, disrupted
by disorders of the night.
A narcoleptic siege pulls my eyelids shut.
Anytime, every time, anywhere, everywhere.

Disruptive sleep apnea
slaps them right open into
a sleepless stare.
CPAP be damned

if insomnia pays a call
and curse the midnight hour
should I take a somnambulistic fall.
Were I to approach a drowse tainted state,

my RLS will shake me, wake me kicking and flailing.
And then I remember the REM
and I slip into dream stage
as rapidly as my eyes can move.

One evening, I can fly.
No wings, no plane, just a soar
into the wild blue yonder…

There’s a loving reunion.
Sandy beach, roaring surf
and you back at my side…

A chase ensues, thrilling
and suspenseful, dangerous
and life threatening…

I’m riding on a bullet train,
the red-eye to morning,
strafe with innuendo…

Erotic arousals
in exotic locales,
every night…

Free-falling from the pinnacle
of an endless precipice
jolted awake by the treacherous landing…

Caught in a sensuous embrace
with a ravenous vixen.
We inch close to that passionate kiss…

…and my damn alarm
gives me a rude awakening.
Sleepus Interruptus!

(C) Walter J Wojtanik

115 thoughts on “#421 – WHAT DREAMS MAY COME”

  1. A Comet, Green

     

    Have you seen the comet,

     green,

    in the morning sky?

    Not I.

    I cannot wake in time

    to spy the scene,

    an aberration in the sky,

    like a star with sails.

     

    A wish for simple viewing

    pales with dreams I wish

    to dream.

     

    Oh, I would visit

    this green being if I could,
    if I could write my own
    thoughts for my sleep.

    I’d lie down with a lift-off
    planned, skip off the moon
    behind my fluttering lids,
    traverse the void,
    avoid an asteroid or two
    to slide aside this
    ball of gas and ice
    and say,
    “Hello.
    I like your glow.”

    And if I could compose
    my dreams,

    I’d have the comet answer me
    in language no one else could know,
    I and the comet,
    sailing, flailing all our dust and gasses
    to and fro.

    That is,
    if I could write my dreams.

    Alas…I cannot wake myself.
    I cannot write my dreams.
    No matter how I long to speak
    to comets.

    How unfair that seems.

    © Damon Dean, 2023

  2. VOWELY NIGHTMARE

    EEE, there’s a scream;
    AAA’s on the prowl;
    III’m sweating heavily;
    UUU’re straining mightily;
    OOO, hoots the owl;
    POOF goes the dream.

  3. GENERATION GAP

    The dreams of youth are dreams of truth
    and so of possibility,
    but old folks’ eyes know all the lies
    that lie behind civility
    and old folks know those dreams, although
    they drift toward senility
    and dream of days when youthful ways
    were theirs, without hostility.

  4. Marie and Walt, your poems are streams (or dreams) of consciousness, each of them transporting me and, I think, any reader.

  5. Marie and Walt, if you chose to retire right now, (don’t, please), these two would be in your personal top five lists. I relate personally to MEG’s experience, prefer it to more phantasmagorical nights, and Walt, this is how you wrote all of the time when I first became attracted to your wordsmithing. So many perfect words, none of them wasted.

  6. Longing

    That dream again,
    the one where
    you’re away
    Not here.
    Out there.
    Somewhere.
    First at an airport
    I’ve never seen,
    then in a house
    we’ve never been.
    A mysterious city
    one with a mall,
    then a maze of buildings.
    My phone won’t work.
    Oh, now, yes, the tone,
    but your number?
    I guess.
    And guess.
    And guess.
    Wrong again,
    and now my legs
    stuck in quicksand,
    my heart begging for
    mercy from this chase,
    but it’s endless,
    you’re never found,
    not one small trace.
    You’d likely think,
    after all these years of love,
    that dream would end,
    but it still appears.

  7. Aviary

    The sound of wings
    bursts through a room
    as light streams
    through black curtains

    but I can’t open my eyes.

    In their midst
    I listen
    to a cacophony
    of songs

    as loud fluttering sounds
    come from everywhere

    and I can’t escape.

    I let the visions
    take me anywhere
    as I surrender-

    I can’t breathe.

    But
    I get up for a moment
    step into a hallway
    an aura of soft blue light
    and go back to bed.

    I lie still
    and listen.

    The refrigerator
    in the kitchen
    gurgles and hums
    an ambient sound.

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  10. Mama’s Dreams

    Reality escaped her more than ever
    Sleep was her vacation from the pain
    More and more her dreams took over
    Further and further she sank into the abyss

    Increasingly her dreams became vocal
    Naming names of people no longer alive
    Some we knew, but others total mysteries
    Some were constants while others passed on by

    Mama dreamed these dreams almost every time
    She would close her eyes and drift off to sleep
    She would talk, she would laugh, she would cry
    But remember nothing when she woke up

    Then the day came we all knew was coming
    Mama’s dreams came to a sorrowful end
    But we’ll ask her the next time we see her
    About those dreams she could never explain

  11. Living the Dream

    I feel like I’m living the dream
    How much more could I be blessed
    God’s so good to me
    Gives me all I need
    God’s the bestest of all the rest

  12. NATURE OF DREAMS

    evaporate
    it seems
    as we edge closer
    to aging
    whereas as a girl
    they’d come in and swirl
    spinning my head
    just as fast
    as they’d go mindfully
    passed
    as I’d grab
    every flick
    of their tail
    setting sail
    wherever they may
    take me
    now even my thoughts
    of dreams have changed
    everything has been
    rearranged
    and I don’t want to
    randomly chase
    pick up my pace
    make my case
    for some fleeting idea
    of what’s possible
    if it isn’t
    can’t be
    won’t be
    will not happen
    because I want to know
    now
    what actually can
    appear
    become near
    push me into gear
    right down here
    where it’s real
    the stuff
    I can touch
    that would be
    more than enough
    meanwhile I wait
    inwardly debate
    on good things
    it seems
    and, at least,
    for now
    ok
    I entertain
    on occasions
    a few smaller
    realistic
    day dreams

    (c) Janet Rice Carnahan 2023

  15. Sun streaming through the trees
    Dancing on fields of lavender
    A little girl spins
    Careless and free
    White dress
    Purple lilac splashed
    Swirling with gentle breeze
    Joy spills laughter from deep within
    A heart innocent,
    untarnished
    Hopeful,
    Light-filled,
    Loved.

  16. What If Your Daydreams Became Your Reality

    Lost in lust
    as daydreams
    rise with
    a hot sun.
    Those days
    of being
    invincible,
    carefree,
    skin tingling
    in anticipation.
    With a vividness
    of reality,
    I see that woman,
    feel those sensations,
    and stay lost
    in lust
    for just
    a little longer.

  19. DREAMERS DIGEST

    Dreams are the stuff
    of legends.

    They are the teeth
    of one’s own imagination.

    We eat the days away
    and digest their blessed truth.

    Our stomachs assimilate
    their fill of rich memories.

    They make their way
    to the deep bowels of the mind.

    It is there—that they find
    their destiny, a purpose.

    It is there—that they unwind
    re-convolute, on purpose.

    It is there—immaterial time
    that we become the stuff of legends.

    ©️ Benjamin Thomas

  20. THE FRUIT OF DREAMS

    Dreams are plucked from
    the virtuous stems of our
    reality one by one.

    They are then stitched
    and streamed together by
    happenstance.

    Entering our subconscious
    mind—sailing just beneath
    our grasp.

    Benjamin Thomas

  22. I am sorry I have not contributed this week. I have a lovely medical test tomorrow and other things.

  23. I Dream a Door

    Oaken wood gone gray
    as I stand looking
    at the inside hanging
    in its frame from leather
    hinges back beaming
    a peculiar pattern
    of splayed trellis
    in two by twos arcing
    floor to lintel wood
    no doubt soaked to bend
    so gracefully from
    banded base

    but the almost strip
    second from left
    has slipped rawhide withes
    gone dry and thin

    new owners wanting
    it restored to former
    beauty ‘fixed’ they say
    so I reach for square nails
    and heft the heavy hammer
    pulling the lattice in place
    and wondering about the man

    listening to her dreams
    of roses and honeysuckle
    lilacs and morning glories

    that he would even bring
    yet another trellis inside
    for her and how that must’ve been
    some kind of love

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