Decipher this Message

Glittering gold hotel

Contrasted by the inky blackness of night

A man in sunglasses and a blue coat taps his fingers

Anxiously on the front desk.

No concierge in sight

Despite the immaculately polished granite counter

And fresh white flowers in tall bronze vases

That loom over us all.

Blue coat’s companions

Three men dressed in purple costumes

Cannot heed his request they stay discreet

For even a few moments

As one begins to sob.

The other two comfort him

Turning the lobby into a makeshift therapist’s office

His drunken gibberish echoing off the glass walls.

When I wake in my own room

Glittering gold, same as the rest of the hotel

Dozens of sheets of paper appear from under the door

Scribbled on

Scratched out

Nonsense words in black ink

But I think someone

Was trying to tell me something important.

#

Fields of golden grass

Waving in the wind

Along the summertime hillsides

A shaggy buffalo running

Running so fast

He’s a blur.

A blur

And then he shifts

Into a fox.

Still running so fast

Still a blur.

There is no entry

In a book of dream interpretations

That is headlined “Buffalo Runs and Turns into Fox”

But I think someone

Was trying to tell me something important.

#

Birds on outstretched wings

Gliding beneath the thunderheads

Stark white

Raven black

Contrasted

With the blue and the gray

Swirling

Into madness.

Flocks of a different kind converge

Overlapping

Spinning

Swarming

Until forty dozen birds

Become one handful.

Screeching and chirping

Disappears

Into stillness.

There is only a breeze

Whistling in my ears.

They say birds are messengers

Heaven sent

Divinely guided

On warm winds.

Perhaps this cacophony

Sent on turbulent squalls

Was more than one someone

Trying to tell me

Something important.