Your Dream

Your dream: to keep on knowing what you know
Past death, to learn the end is not the end,
That hearts don’t change, but truth will never bend
To grapple with the dust we come from, slow
Disintegration. It’s a body blow,
But look at what you’re trying to defend:
A dream. It isn’t likely to depend
On hope that something else — above, below,

Sideways — comes to your rescue after all
The time we’ve spent on praying that we’re meeting
Divine requirements. Somebody is cheating,
Someone has claimed admittance to the ball
Where there’s no dance, no music, and no hall.
This dream of yours is simple, sad, and fleeting.

Pharmacological Announcement

Prime Minister Pothead has just declared
He absolutely needs cheese curds and chips
To make decisions that won't be impaired
By hunger; I heard it from his own lips.
He says he used to mainline LSD,
But I don’t think that’s possible, is it?
I had a cube of it once, in my tea,
And thought: my baseball cap and glove don’t fit,
So I tried heroin, mushrooms, cocaine,
And ecstasy, but none of them worked right.
I think the PM has just gone insane,
And I blame coffee, which he drinks all night.
This red pill with no name, my drug of choice,
Has robbed me of my charm, but not my voice.

False Hope

False hope is everything, some days. Some nights
I dream only the times you smiled and said,
“Nothing but happy decades are ahead,
Skies shining with a hundred thousand lights,
The best of everything.” We should by rights
Have managed it. Fled is that music, bread
Not cast upon the waters. This, instead,
Is nothing much: insults, disinterest, slights.

Of course this ending isn’t what we planned,
But false hope lends a kind of dignity,
If we insist on one sweet memory.
One favour’s all I ask now: take my hand,
Pretend it’s more than just a one-night stand
And always was, my own love. Lie to me.

Now, Now

Gently, I touch your face, inhale your smile,
Kiss you intently, now open my eyes
To greet a perfect world. I realize,
Just as you do, this is the common style:
I love like anyone. I have no guile,
No dissonant feelings, just love, outsize
And hopeful. Sometimes it’s a great surprise,
This cage that I’ve been held in for some while.

I fear nothing, not empty arms, not loss,
Because I have no future, just the sense
That this is more than I’ve earned. Present tense
Is all that I can manage now; I cross
Each burning bridge, the past becoming dross.
Now, now, only now, is my recompense.