I have dreamed many a dream
Where fantasy
Did seem
To be reality.
And I have thought, that I ought
To take care
Lest my dream, turn to nightmare.
For in dreams
All is not what it seems,
And who can fathom
The chasm
That may or may not be
Between a dream,
And reality?
Standing under this rain drenched tree
I hear the breeze
That rustles the leaves
Whisper to me.
Then, a sneeze,
Brings me back to reality.
Birthday balloons are here still
Though the cards are no longer on display.
How long will
Balloons stay
Held up by gas
Until, at last
They deflate, and sink to rest?
‘Tis best
To put them away.
Yet they
Remain on display
But the pretend
Will descend
One fine day.
The barefoot girl who never was
Because
The beach
Remained out of reach
To me.
I hear the sea
And feel the sand
But I can not command
Your hand into mine,
For I find
That you are a mermaid of my mind,
Or perhaps half real,
Though one can not a kiss seal
With a middle-aged man’s hazy recollection
Of a perfection of skin
And imagined sin.
There was a young philosopher called Neil
Who said, “all we perceive is not real”.
It was his bad luck,
To get hit by a truck,
Which knocked some sense into Neil.
Mad cap schemes.
Heels,
Slippery as eels.
They wheel
And deal
And no not what is real,
But in sober moments,
When the lights go out
And the party goers shout
Is no longer heard,
They see the fact of the matter,
– Broken dreams can not shatter
A bizarre
Dream of a runaway car,
As real
As this desk I feel.
A mad man driving,
Me striving
To get out.
No point to shout.
Me on the phone.
The driver alone
In his crazed head.
We stop, I am not dead.
A few incoherent words are said
By one
Who is in his mind far gone.
I stay.
He moves away.
—
A day breaks much like any other.
Soon I may discover
What man drove that phantom car
And who we really are.
Perhaps he is me
And I am he …
“Poetry isn’t real” you said.
I shook my head
For what the poet feels
Is real.
The words in the poet’s brain,
His whole train
Of thought
Is caught
And given life upon the page.
His poems may forever dance
And bring romance
To the paper stage.
A poem can make one laugh or cry.
So why
Can you not try
To lift your eyes from the ground,
And gaze upon something profound?
I spent the earlier portion of this evening with my old friend Jeff. As ever, our conversation ranged far and wide. One topic on which we dwelt at length revolved around what constitutes reality and how, at any given point we can be certain that what we are experiencing is real. When one dies, my friend remarked, the world ceases to exist. While I don’t wish to get into whether my dear friend is, in fact right, I had in the back of my mind during the entirety of our conversation a poem by A. E. Housman and, on returning home I felt compelled to look it up. The lines run thus:
“Good creatures, do you love your lives
And have you ears for sense?
Here is a knife like other knives,
That cost me eighteen pence.
I need but stick it in my heart
And down will come the sky,
And earth’s foundations will depart
And all you folk will die”.
Kevin
Scentless
Solitary flower
White table cloth.
“Its artificial” my friend remarks.
“No, its real” I say, my fingers touching petals soft as oh too perfect skin.
We drink. The candle illumines a thing neither living or dead.
K Morris - Poet 