I.
Around us are the thoughts we’ve not grasped,
real and potential, whispering.
Our consciousness like the mantle of a flame,
moving among curtains,
amid the soft breath of our interest,
We are children of varying intellect,
from moment to moment.
we illuminate so much.
and know, so little.
How do we speak
of the sleep that we sleep?
Do we think that the eyes slept.
before the hand moved?
That only when we’re awake.
do we know sleep?
and we are often not?
Around us, are we sometimes,
and sometimes, we are there?
When we run, sooner or later,
we will slow down.
It is still us, only slower;
would we wish to always run?
When we think, we grasp more,
but we cannot always think.
Is it still us, only dumber?
And would we wish to always think?
II.
Animal dreams
food, sex, power, warmth ….
And Scheherazade in the breeze,
if we listen.
How can you reason
with people who refuse to discuss.
what they do not understand?
What will you say to yourself
falling asleep?
That you wish the voyage well
and that when you’re awake again
that it may be sooner?
And that if you sleep
that the world does also.
But that God knows.
your intentions are good.
And he has put order in the world.
and you in a reed basket
on the Nile?
Sleep child
Scheherazade is in the wind.
and you will awake.
But if you dream.
of war and death.
Look well, my child,
for dreams are messages.
III.
And these messages are for you.
for none other is the sleeper
and none other can awake.
Words on paper from another day
born of coffee, drink, or music.
God almost extinguished.
between pressed pages on the shelf.
The books wait
thru the heater’s hiss.
And the murmur of silverware.
the lover’s groan
and the real estate loan.
Alarm clocks and bills
television and the shower.
saved against the day.
When the sound of Scheherazade
whispers.
In the light across your wife’s face.
or the wind in your trees through flannel.
Pause the shovel,
And bless the sweat,
Divinity has smiled on you.
gallagher
23 Oct 1990
Bremen, Germany