Perchance to Dream

When it comes, it isn't. Call dreaming a riddle.
Water doesn't feel wet when you're in it,
and dreaming is dead real when it begins.

No images this time
words again

Thoughts printed and careened until they
were forced back on themselves for nourishment
in a kinetic recoil. They bounced, fought and merged.
Each moment a sentence or two scrolling across my vision,
Yielding a slew of urgent questions clamoring for the floor.

“Were you to repeat this, would you use first person or third?”

“Which one of you is experiencing this? How do you determine?
How important is it to be right?”

“Do you see how every context already saw you coming, laid
traps?”

There is a pendulum here, a three-dimensional shadow of the one poised above the heart of the city. It sways in multiple directions at once and at different speeds. The lie is that one can reach, within it, some kind of détente. You pen your best lines, deliver them with passion and perfect timing. You state the case of your life to tacit response. You walk away with a smile, believing this time the deal with the Devil has been figured out. This time, you win. However, the deal has been perfected on the other end to lead you to this false confidence. There are always advantages to allowing the enemy to believe he has won.

Photo by Paula Campbell (http://pcampbellphoto.com/index.html)

You return to the act of creation to find that you have, indeed, come out ahead, as long as you do not dig too deeply, study the boundaries with too much scrutiny. Best to pick a medium and a closed universe and ride the blind wave to an ephemeral satisfaction. Walk beyond the taped off areas and you see that your world is a room within a room within a room of people that don’t stop laughing.”

The questions begin to fractal and assume the stance of a lecture meant half to warn, half to entice. The responses I generate naturally half-asleep load and fire just as easily as the questions arrive, pounding holes in the exterior of inquisition and exposition alike. But it’s old hat for the other side, and whatever damage you think inflict is compensated for immediately, replacement axioms, paradigm shifts are born to fill the holes. Your attempts to gain control over the shifting parameters of form, function, perception, and acceptance yield little – all your might just to tread water.

Like trying to punch holes in the flow of a fountain.