the other night I dreamt my way into a dark city
where I lost everything I looked for
traveled on the outskirts of buildings
jumped fire escapes
ran into a man
covered in blood
shooting up

I ran
he followed

he caught me
he held me down and he shot me up
he bled his blood on me
he put his poison in me 

I woke up despairing for myself
heroin
and him
heroin

EASY LISTENIN

x

old bather

an old nostalgic smell sneaks into my dreams like smoke under a door creeping in slow and steady into the foggy ether of my latenight mind until all of the sudden 

POOF

a whole and healthy version manifests as vision and all is light and all is well and I wake contented and assured. you are okay. but then I see the current version and the visions blurred and broken and my sweet dreams have deceived me again into thinking the good are good at heart and in mind, I am guiltless, 

you are well

but I'm not and you're not. 

You're all fucked up and it makes me fucking sad

sleep/wake

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.


from Roethke's villanelle The Waking 


I wake to sleep some words have such a profound resonation in me I read them over and over until they're burnt into my eyelids and my breath and the space between the words and my eyelids melt into one amorphous multi-lettered vision opening/closing, sleeping/waking, this shaking keeps me steady


I learn by going where I have to go