At the Bed of the Unknown Dreamer

How should you tell the morning what you’ve seen?

Like a bride, bring your life nervously to bed

with its mutual longings nonetheless foreign.

Have your tea with milk, turn the lamp,

let the body take its leave a great distance.

From closing windows, half-heard music,

shots and scattered flashes.

Memory makes a good mistress.

Those undiminished eyes, bafflingly.

Those whispering relics. That dirt road

the morning washed with stray petals.

Glamour girls on bicycles across the street

turn their smiles, always, a tease and its undoing.

Present-absentee, how should you return?

When the guest arrives do not wish

revenge for their absence. Be the circuitous path.

When the guest asks to hear a song

dust off your notes and march them out.

O fugitive innocence, as constant as the passion

that casts you away and reels you back.

What we hide in does not contain us.

Are you willing to swim out into love’s undertow

because the bombardment is beginning.

It blooms light, bloom, light is blooming, years

of it attack your window and when you awake,

on either side of your body,

yesterday and tomorrow

drape a hand atop your heaving chest.

Reviews

[Donald Meikle]

Had that nightmare into my teens. Don't drink tea with milk anymore. Still haven't got over Frogs (the photo was astonishing) wartime memories slip in anywhere d****t.

[A. Amos]

Simply splendid, enjoyed the read and thanks for sharing

[Sami Khalil]

"Those undiminished eyes, bafflingly.
Those whispering relics. That dirt road
the morning washed with stray petals.

Those glamour girls on bicycles across the street
turn their smiles, always, a tease"

The poem was enjoyable to say the least...Bravo.................