Dreams, Undead, Fire

It happens on the day you wake up,
when the dream you held tight like a warm blanket, fuzzy
slips from your fingers, replaced by the cold wind
of the morning, slapping against your skin,
hey, face me you coward - it yells -
in tones of harsh bluster, face me damn you
pick up your head and face me.

When the wind dies, later
and you reach your car and put it into drive
the echo of her eyes lances into what is left
of the spark you once had. There in that moment
something is remembered, that tree you wanted to climb
or that girl you wanted to date, silly isn’t it after all
these years to think about your goal to visit all fifty states
and the desire to feel a peyote sunrise.

The alchemist in you has boiled experiences down
into the raw Archetypal elements,
the girl was just about sex
the tree was just to feel high
one state is much like another from the highway
and drugs just mess with your mind.
It should be enough to have figured things out,
to have bottled experience away,
now you live in the vicarious realm -
It must be the stories of others,
you know the ones where they do the crazy things
and you are safe, laughing at the kitchen table.
But this is the day that you have woken up,
this is the day the dream stays fuzzy by your side
the blanket you have stolen back from the wind
when you grabbed its hand - faced it and said
enough is enough.
It is the echo of your eyes that burns forth
igniting the soul, and she laughs,
because she is your muse and that is what they do.

©Frank Coughlin May 2011

The Raven's Shadow

A feather of Darkness decorates her hair
if you are fortunate to see this woman
With hood down. Eyes are
hidden, yet you feel their pull.
She stands at the crossroads
in the darkness of your soul -
her voice chills - she is afraid of nothing.

Are you serious ? Is her challenge
She is the mistress of magic
Her forte is melting away
your illusions, your hubris and your ego.
Her familiar, the bird of shadow,
laughs at your approach, yet you continue forward. She stands at the crosswards
of your soul in darkness, the deep black you dare not look at.
You do not back down - you are not daunted.
'Choose' she cries in raven screech - Magic is your reply
Her eyes open wide, round beady white, then larger and cloudy
till finally perfectly round and perfectly clear
you gaze upon yourself as the raven sees you

I have heard tales of those who ran only to be haunted the rest of their life
I have heard tales of those who became clouded in the head
I am not one of them - I stand tall - there is nothing here I have not seen before
No I am bold - I reach out with both hands, her shoulders gather them
and bind them around her - pulling me close
A wind wails round us and the raven flies upward
off her shoulder and onto my head, the wind screams
as she melts into my arms - our hug has morphed into merger
We are one - I see with her eyes - I cease to be
and then there is darkness, total darkness nothing upon nothing
a silence of ebony, jet, midnight, moonless midnight
I am total magic, there is no bone, blood, or sinew
I understand, knowledge flows silent through me, I understand
I am being crushed, destroyed in essence, I can feel myself ebbing away
There is more here than my mortal frame can stand
death by knowledge - I am done - I  hear a female laugh
she lets go of me and I collapse - I have no body - I am gone
Tis then the raven lands upon my shoulder
tis then I feel her kiss upon my lips
the breath of life returns to my mortal frame
Well done - she sighs - come back again.

The dream is ended, yet I feel it still
the Magic is in my bones
I ache arthritic with it
Memories I have yet to experience
Jump into my path like cats of black
I know she waits deep inside
I feel her calling me back.
In the distance, Raven cries its treetop caw.

How To Change the World (in four steps)

The mourning is where we start, smartly black,
Heading northward on the medicine wheel,
winter cold, and stunningly silent,  saving our grief
for some other time, Perhaps - definitely not now
when there is too many eyes, I do not trust them.
No matter, dust has changed to dust, what has gone
will not come back, positive attitude or not.
It is not this moment that has closed my heart,
this moment is the public moment, when you can
tell me anything - how you are sorry, how you know
what I feel - all the proper civilized saying one says
in front of the place where we are to let go of what has left.

They say one goes through shock and disbelieve
when emotional knives are thrust into the heart
Caesar's worst pain was seeing who had set upon him
Et tu - you brutal ones - whom I once called family.
Upon sight of my heart's essence flowing outward
in an unhealthy way, I died a death of disbelief,
and a blanket of emotions was buried deep
in my cocoon, my hibernating coma of numbness.
And I slept a good long sleep, dreaming of heaven.

Medicine wheel turns, this time to the east,
the place of beginnings, the place of birth,
bear wakes hungry, disoriented by the long dream.
I long to move to the south, the place of growth,
but I must sow the seeds that I have gathered from my dreams.
I must brake ground, unwilling ground, I must fight for these dreams.
The birds hunger for my failed dreams, harpies waiting for the earth,
the physical world to say - no way Jose - you are not good enough.
Your dreams must die - we live for your failure once again.
I must keep sowing these seeds - I must keep hope alive.

The forth step, of course, is the future - a place never reached
But we will ourselves there nonetheless, undaunted, dreams
intact, thriving in the glowing light know as love. It is a place
beyond Eden - for nothing grows in Eden - they only stay the same.
We have bigger dreams - dreams so bright they light the world at night.
And the only hunger is the hunger for more.

(©Frank Coughlin - April 2011)