Before the Vilification of Hypnagogic Birth

after Dali

i.

when a dream places its hand
on the neck of a man
the skin of the orchestra
quivers with anticipation

this is the thrum of vertebrate life
at its most prehensile
shorn of all pretense

an anthropomorphic land
where exaggerated musculatures
and graphic terrors
strain for release

engorged loaves of bread
lie draped with carrion flies

the sleeping bones of geology
rise up like stilts in procession

burning giraffes lope
across the atavistic horizon

ii.

when a dream places its neck
on the hand of a man

there is no rationale
for the blood's ceaseless shiver
or the blade's awkward slice

this is the null point of gravity
where all weight has ceased
and any motion can be
refrained in soluble lines

this is the coin that never lands
in its flickering pizzicato
across defiled humanity

where nightstands and cellos
assume irresponsible stances
and the specters of the age
are cast as fables

iii.

when a man places his neck
in the hands of a dream

when a man places his hand
on the neck of a dream

when the pulse of a dream
pricks the neck of a man
with the slumbering chords
of its own apparition

monoliths to the unconscious
concrete and irrational
are erected in stone
and fused in flesh
beneath a painted sky

Appeared in my collection Surrealities