Ziggurats tower high above the world of diplomats and bureaucrats,
Above the clouds of earthen concerns of loud crowds of plutocrats,
Above republicans, democrats, and dealers in their corporate habitats,
Reaching up to heavenly borders where gods reside and angels abide,
Far from the clamor of dramatic glamour with no enamor, no upside,
And will we have to descend from this place we cannot comprehend
But love for the peace it affords to bind our chords to the world again?
In the Cathedral of the mind where you bind every thought,
Yet running wild in the half light, child free and unbeguiled,
No greater chance, no better time than to prance and dance
In the Cathedral of the Mind
Here in low luminescence of the night you might take flight
To regions unknown, blown far afield what to be shown
In the Cathedral of the Mind
Strange things dare to appear in dreamland with sands of time flowing above,
Somehow, somewhere to dare sleep slip away lest she have something to say,
After all, night is day in the fertile fields of dreamland as spacious as my soul,
Yet there is an ubiquitous emptiness in the fullness of the mystic meanderings,
Wanderings wondering where we are going in, around and through absurdity
As odd broken thoughts flit about here and there in the eclectic eccentricity
That only a sleeping psyche can conjure without conjecture in senseless beauty
In dubious duty to slumber so sanguine, never languid, causing anguish of mind
In binding it to such bizarre bazaars of mixed recollections and new tales told
Without rhyme or reason in the lullaby season in treason against rationality,
But this is dreamland, after all, where the banality of my reality is left behind
Not an effervescent dream
When pulled along in the slipstream
You have to wake up
Take what comes along
And belong to the truth
Leave the blight of numinous night behind
Rush into the light so bright
Recover your sight
See the trees in the forest of life
And the honey bees of daily details
For this cream is richer than any dream
Or so it seems to those of us just waking up
So sup with us at the table of reality
Stranger than fiction with its own diction
And depiction bizarre enough
To cure your addiction to elusive fantasy
It has its own history of mystery
And more to spare to repair your mind
As you unbind yourself from mere shadows
And embrace the one dream of the Dreamer
That became what we now call reality
Is it wrong to dream, to ever sail the clouds of fantasy?
To escape your agony in some kind of numinous alchemy?
Ah! But to grant mindless amnesty to your known enemy!
To twist reality into absentee truth in a sea of abuse???
Dreams are often heavenly cream to the tarnished soul,
But fantasia can be as dangerous as the jungles of Asia!
So why are you sipping tea amid the debris of your home?
Why are you dancing with the devil again
When you know he will ultimately win???
Why are you taking the bait and waiting for genuine love?
You already know the grand show ‘n how it always goes!
You take your cue from voices inside your head
And then gladly give the devil his due . . . foolish!
When the hell are you going to take a stand and demand
What is right, before night comes when there is no light?
You live in frightful contradiction, giving in to addiction
Of fantastical scenes that never were nor ever will be!
Oh my dear one! You bit the Disney chip long, long ago
And decided to forgo living real life in the real world . . .
No, it is not wrong to dream,
But very dangerous to give in
To the schemes of false voices, making such sick choices!
Dammit! Drive the devil from your home
And let him write his own tome alone!
Step out of Wonderland, take the band of Truth in hand,
And walk and talk in brutal honesty . . .
Sometimes reality makes this demand!
Walk the road of life
Think one way, look another
Don’t bother with facts
Run to the dead-end
Chasing down your illusions
Pollution of mind
Wake up in your bed
Your head full of lost dreams
Cream of fantasy
Come out! Come out! Come out from Fantasia!
And be done with your aphasia and soul aplasia;
Race toward truth and finally embrace reality!
Life is not a fairy tale, no one to bail you out . . .
See, your Prince Charming is only harming you
While you’re alarming yourself
Over pups ‘n cups and saucers!
And you whistle while you work
In thorns and thistles, do you?
And slaves used to sing to bring some comfort;
Do you really see any difference
If any real difference there be?
Come out! Come out from your fantasy land!
And band together with the warriors at hand
Who will attend you on your trek to honesty
And instruct you in the prosody of real reality
So you’ll finally be able to truly communicate
Without swallowing the bait of dwarfish lies
That fly from small children in men’s bodies!
Come out! Come out! Come out from Fantasia!
Come out! Come out and be free . . . at liberty!
Like night and day, no one can say which way you’ll turn;
To the right or left, jump in the light or run into the night,
Who knows where you’ll show yourself next and when,
And then how high will you fly? Or will ya crash and burn
At the very next turn as you churn inside and never learn?
You show an immense proclivity to levity and flippancy
With no dependency on discernment or shrewd selectivity
In the gravity of genuine life lived with some perspicacity;
You’re rather like the wind that sweeps round every bend,
Sending the debris of people tumbling this way and that
At your appearance through the day without adherence
To respectability, propriety or any suitability to decency;
Like dark and light twirling and swirling in the one vortex
Of your soul, no one knows whether you’ll shine or recline
In the shadows where you’ll pine for love too high to grasp
As you gasp for the fair air of purity in some serenity of life,
But you’re prancing along in fantasy,
Dancing on the very edge of reality…
On the edge of reality
Note: First published August 2016
You spy me chasing high shadows in a grand land of mirage,
And what am I after, after all? Joy and laughter, perhaps?
Running down the alleyway to the bay, the ghostly ship
Has sailed away, but I cannot stay in one place; the chase
Must continue up and down each venue, desperation running
Through every sinew of my being, so then without seeing
I keep the mad pace of my chase of intangible phantoms
In this misty kingdom of insanity and high-vaulted vanity
All to avoid facing the morbidity of real reality…
But there you are, great Lion Lord, shaking your mane
In wonder of just how insane it is to chase shadow faces
In such dangerous places, but such is the case of the fool
Who, for all of his running and plunging, must one day
Embrace his mortality in reality anyway!
Do you dream of higher ways on better days
That lays like a brick thick in your heart,
Cutting at the corners, making incisions
With precision, leaving you with decisions
To make that bake in your mind, the kind
That leaves you panting on the bare floor,
Moving around your house like an ugly boar;
It’s an undiluted chore to dream such dreams
Of a lighter future within brighter tomorrows;
And is it worth it to birth thoughts of mirth?
Or is there only pain in store for the whore
Of such fantasy? You take your time and make
Your pretty cake and eat it, too, no matter
How blue you feel as you peel away reality
Layer by layer all to still dream your dreams
Of much brighter ways on much better days…
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