~~~
I Awake!
~~~
In the old hotel
Diana & I retire to
a busted-up suite upstairs
& haunt it
~
While we levitate in the
center of the dusty time-deranged room
indulgently locked in our favorite position & getting along
I fall into a deep deep sleep
~
When I awake I discover
myself prone on the cracked tiles of
the ancient Egyptian temple that’s half buried
in the sand dunes west of Yuma
~
Ishtar, the lost Assyrian goddess of love & war
sits up, peers down
at me between her miraculous legs &
says
~
“It’s time for you to return to
the Christian mission, Rawclyde
Your 10 days sleeping outside
are over”
~
She then taps
the back of my head with
her bare heel
which knocks me out
~
I awake again
having dreamed a dream
that was embraced
in a dream
~
Now I discover myself alone
in a sleeping bag
on a big pile of dirt & chunks of concrete
in the gravel pit next door to Crossroads Mission
~
Partnering with nothing
more
or less
than reality
~
The sun is about to rise
under a pink bed-spread
stretched across the jagged little mountain range
out yonder
~
A very long train
thump-thumps by &
somebody fires-up a tractor in
the gravel pit
~
I, camouflaged
in the early morning shadows on
my cold rocky knoll, instantly
roll-up my bedroll
~
As I trudge away from the peak
of my dreams
I realize that the invisible cosmic forces of the universe
are all around & inside of me
~
And that they can be evoked
for the common good
or remain hidden forever in a ghost town
a ghost town called Love…
~
(Copyright Clyde Collins 2012)
~~~
Ishtar
