Dreams - A Collection

Success

It's said ‘success comes not to the faint of heart'.
Indeed, it calls on those whose practiced arts
are feigning smarts and quick-time verbal darts
and teethy smiles,
disarming wiles
and deals in secret swung
and genuflections sung
to those with purse well-hung.


Career

Men mingle, paired or single, round a room,
propelled by pasted smiles - to orbit whom?
They seek the sun for warmth - return to womb,
or hope in turn
themselves to burn.
Bizarre, this solar system - gaseous giants
spin nearest Sol, yet barely move - pretense                      
of proper orbit, faking comet's brilliance.


Money

Discovered destitution disappoints.
Impaled by chance on economic points,
your snazzy home or sporty car disjoints.
Perhaps someday
you'll make your way
to sunny Shangri-la -
like salmon you once saw,
regain U-to-pi-a.


Sex

Nocturnal dreams come either dry or wet;
diurnal thoughts envision perfect pet -
another's mate or office bait - and yet
when heart impels
to ring their bells
your partner will suffice.
Imagined bods entice -
and make you do it twice.


Sleepless Dreams

I've seen the harried man whose nights were tossed
by hopes that morphed to monsters, sourly sauced
by thoughts his aspirations might be lost:
What never was
and never does
might never do or be -
from nothing gained, you see,
regards himself in poverty.


Dreamless Sleep

I've seen spent men with minds devoid of dreams -
who lost the gleam that lit their morning schemes;
or never gazed at stars or mused extremes;
the young heart idled
from passions bridled -
complacent sauntering cow;
compliant mule at plow,
now stuck in the ruts of his brow.

Alcuin of York