Alms for the Spirit by Candice James - HTML preview

 

Dreaming, Absent, Present, Surreal (5:45)

© Candice James, Poet Laureate Emerita

New Westminster, BC CANADA

 

I am dreaming:

 

The weary faces on the statue of lovers

are worn with acid tears of the sun

falling from a jealous sky.
The moon is an angry angel that shows no mercy

riding a silver stallion armed with arrows and spears

gathered and stolen from spring's hidden vault of destruction.

Strands of golden hair drift past my eyes.

I reach to grasp one but cannot.
I bow my head and burst forward

to batter the wind into submission

and chase the essence of sweet dreams I can taste.
 

I am absent:

 

I am laying as an infant,

crawling like a baby,

walking like a toddler,

then running as a child of the wind;

the wind I will batter as an adult.

 

I am present:

 

I lay in the lap of a lesser god,

inside the tree of life.

I watch the amethyst butterflies glide with eloquent ease

through the glorious gardens of paradise lost.

 

The wind picks-up; the sky darkens;

the atmosphere thickens.

The butterflies tremble, change course and flee south

through a hurricane of wildflowers, nets and bees.

 

The sky spins faster and faster until it becomes a flame.

I walk through a wall of sweet smelling smoke

and climb into smooth mirrors that dance in the mist

with the shadows of yesterday’s children.

 

The polished cutlass of charity glints in the midnight sun

brandishing hope and freedom with the compass of morality.

 

It crowns all the butterflies lost in flight,

engraves their initials in the eyes of the stars

and entreats all the birds to ride roughshod winds

into the mouths of masked inlets and forests:
to find the lost butterflies and turn them to flame

that they may burn the wind to the quick

and return to the land of bright patterned wings

alive with the essence of vivid wildflowers;

to play games of tag with the sun and the wind

and hide and seek with the clouds and the rain.

 

I alter my universe to fit with my thoughts

Then slide through the kaleidoscope veins in my eyes.

 

There’s an ocean of sky tucked into my palm

where birds break formation and fly upside down.

They put on white faces and red bulbous noses

and become those menacing crazed childhood clowns

who hid in my closet and terrorized my dreams

In my fantasy world that’s now reality.

 

I struggle to turn back the hands of time

to before I was lost in this unlabeled madness.

 

It’s no good.

 

The upside-down birds fall from the sky

and the menacing clowns are cheering profanities

and waving a bevy of sharp butcher knives

chasing me down a dead end dark alley.

 

 

 

There’s no escape.

 

So…

I become surreal:

 

I inhale

the invisible breath of the universe,

the ruby red blood of life

and the butterflies write their names on my forehead

with the natural indelible dyes of the earth.

 

I float down a river of pastel dreams and torn nets.

I metamorphize and become a human butterfly.

 

A billion stars explode in the noon day sun

and I fly through them all with magnificent ease.

This day takes the shape of a million months

And I’m finally at home in my own eternity.

 

But still …

 

I am absent:

 

I am laying as an infant,

crawling like a baby,

walking like a toddler,

then running like a child of the wind;

the wind I will batter as an adult.

 

I exhale

the white diamond dust of death

and suddenly the butterflies turn on me

And erase their names from my pulsating brow.

My wounded forehead bleeds into torn antique cocoons

And the patiently waiting world spins me back

Into the vortex of mind into the heart of the dream.

 

I am dreaming:

 

The statue of the lovers, the angry angel

the silver stallion and the golden strands of hair

are dissolving in the acid tears of the sun

raining down from the petulant, jealous sky.

 

The essence of the dream is fade-fading away.

Its taste on my tongue is only a memory now

And I am floating and drifting down from reality’s cliffs

like soft newborn snow in the shade of a summer breeze.

 

 

I am the absence of presence.

 

I am the surreal dream.