lucid dreaming

 

(1)

it's deadline day

crunch time, 11th hour

don't fret, patronne

i have a list right

here in my palm

i've written it up

itemized each step

so i don't forget the

gist of the important

nor the parentheticals

summed up and spent

fiscally perfect

and not just one but

two proposals for

the same pot of gold

two more brilliant thoughts

from the blast furnace

of this perfected throat

yes, more than a list

the minutia written in my head

with maps and charts to

illustrate the idiot words

those phone calls

i always put off but

the numbers firmly fixed at

the ends of the neurotransmitters

(2)

i wake up in a sweat

i missed the train

took the wrong bus

met up with an indian couple

whom i worked with long ago

and they suggested the

tandoori chicken and dal

at the resto taj mahal

where the bus drops me off

but there's no time to eat

with this looming deadline

and this last night to do it in

and why do i put everything off

until the night before

again and again and again

as if i'm dead inside

as if i can accomplish nothing with

my god-given talent?

oh why am i such a fool?

how do i get lost in a city i've lived in

all my life and for the thousandth time?

walk and walk until i come upon

a bus stop filled with

conversing workers

every make and class and race

some punching tickets in a blue box
but the damn thing won't take my money

they each put on a yellow hard hat

and cross the torn-up road

as the break whistle blows

oh it's not a bus stop at all!

and i think i must call home on my
worthless piece-of-shit cell phone

my grandson answers with babytalk

daddy's not home, a woman

with a german accent picks up

i stroll down the highway

under overpasses into a spate of

luxury hotels

(3)

"quel est le pourcentage?

qu'est-ce que vous pensez?"

i look up at the sky

these africans think it's gonna rain

and they're right of course

testing me in french

a waitress appears

in a tight pink dress

she runs down the menu

in rapid français

"whatever you want

n'importe quoi sauf les boissons"

grace à dieu

i know this woman!

she's the lesbian lover

of la patronne

and she says she'll

save my ass

as she gives me her cell phone

i roll into a booth

as an asian man shouts
"je suis là!" holding his penis
whoops it's the men's room
the ladies' is across the hall
with its long line of empty pails

but her damn phone doesn't work
i'm walking in the pouring rain
when a turbaned man in a hotel van
stops to pick me up, opens the door
drives me far from my pink savior
into a deadzone of unfinished buildings

(4)

"i can change, i swear"
said bob dylan

and he went from folk

to garage band

and never looked back

i'm good at that

my sweat dries fast

i love to guess the

end of movies but

i hate the end of dreams

photo from "a snake in june"