Dream'scape

Along the backbone of our lives

Is a 'well of dreams galore,

Time the case that rises on,

Upward from the factory floor.

Now days and nights by Sun may be,

But dreams are Master to you and me.

They spill forth--

Spill forth--

Into Memory's pool.

Now Time may leave our thoughts to chance,

And dreams to mind by circumstance...

But diamonds in the life-long rough

Shine uncontested; unrebuffed.

My dreams, as such, number in thousands,

While focus brings to my attention

Only those refusing loss

Within the crowd of death and dust.

Nightmares plenty have I seen,

While my body was away--

Dreams of such frightening flair,

Of running non-stop from despair.

In some I cross the Earth on fours,

No paws, but hands, and skills galore.

(Not a curse, I do implore,

But will of soul, if nothing more.)

In some a voice both near and dear

Is stolen by an evil host

To bade me through a darkened door.

In others still, the land lays odd,

As malls and fields are stitched as one.

From ghosts to monsters to yarns bizarre,

There is no solace near or far;

For basements filled to the brim with shadows,

Attest to the shapes I imagine inside them.

And once I am shed of my slumber,

To closets and corners I sometimes wander

In search of the spirits who taunted me so;

In another dimension--

Or a time long ago.