Awake (After a Dream)

Sunlight chimes morning and

Shatters glass.  Shards of window

Break and fall.  Pieces of day

Cover sidewalks, like leaves

After a cold rain.  Memory is now

Broken.  White-hot flecks

Steam and evaporate,

Tossed apart on the cement.

"Night & Dreams"

Watercolor, Lacquer, Japanese Paper

Struggling For Relevance

I woke from a vivid dream.
It had rattled my sleep and comfort.
I thought: To write, now,
After all of this.  And I cried,
Struggling to do it,
“It’s lost.  I can’t retrieve
It” – it already slipping
My fingers like a kite string –
“And nothing will be the same.”
Then you gave me your hand,
Replacing my emptiness with
A purpose to hold.

Dream of You (for Nikki)

The image of Persia . . .

Like a dark stream of hair it curls

Undoes itself, then curls again

Ribboning over and around

Pillows and polished memories

Dream’s empire unfurls

Colors purple and gold snapping

In the liquid breeze,

A woven stream bridging

The straits of logic in my sleep

And then you descend

Upon my Greece your soft lips

Parted your eyes opening mine

Hamlet In The Morning

Walking to work tired, feet sticky
With the aftermath of dreams.
They made sense earlier this morning
And still cling to my shoes.

Is this the way, always?
To wake.  To sip coffee and memory,
And then walk between
The linger and abrupt necessity?