“… I AM THE DREAMER OF DREAMS…”
© Elwood Herring 13/1/99 REVISED 16/6/99
I succumbs to Id.
She appears from nowhere.
She waves her hand over dusky strata of decay.
You do not conform to our world.
A heatless zephyr blows carelessly
Remember, she breathes warmly,
The scene fades, fractures
Sleep, relax, let go.
Dream of serene landscapes, lost lovers, unreachable youth
down layer upon layer of troubled past.
Become one, alone, unburdened
amongst surreal worlds of peace.
Remember me, she asks, soundlessly.
We loved long ago.
Memory, acceptance, agreement.
Yes, but from where? When?
Her reply wafts over the ethereal scene.
Don’t talk. Just observe.
Strange landscapes –
solemn structures, aeons forgotten;
all under a dense cloak of unredeemable age.
Barren aberrant ashamed desolate mutated
old old old
Don’t breathe, she warns,
slow your heartbeat
or all may crumble to dust.
Steal softly, slowly, as snowflakes on snow.
Sad shapes observe our progress -
empty shadows of spectres
resemble human as of a vague memory.
Unable to move, all strength spent.
One speaks
low and slow.
Malformed guttural consonants croak from rusty tongue
as one by one the stars succumb to entropy.
You should not look upon us ...
Long long our hurtful forms must rot.
No glow to show through for us.
No form too slow for us.
Our unborn thoughts torn from our bulk.
Our forlorn souls shorn from us...
Sold to 
Go now ...
Or you too would turn foul.
Your world must not know of ours.
- - - - - -
and the speaker’s hollow form
collapses to ash.
and as before, bereft of sound.
Although you dream us,
we alone are real.
Separate dream from dreamer
and return to me;
not to them.
Don’t try to understand
yet.
yet the haunted atmosphere reverberates
a message of concern for an undreamed future.
Don’t forget us she repeats, echoed echoed echoed,
Tell no-one of what you saw
but do not fear.
A better world can be dreamt
and there rests your true self -
may your eternal essence return to me.
Now awake.
