OF TIME AND DREAMS

What is that time called

Just before sleep fully takes over

When the night-mind, in acid-etched clarity

Lines up the day’s matters

Forcing them to kneel in pain’s shadow?

What is that time called

That sounds its claxon for battle 

Swinging the Damoclesean sword

Slashing away

The nubile dreams of the innocent?

The time just before being delivered

To the mercy of that clamor

Accompanying the onset of dreams

That time when heart and brain come

Together each with its own music;

Sharps and flats dueling for supremacy

Offering a clarion call sometimes

So lovely as to be taken as anthem

Shepherding the heart

Through sunsets,

Births,

Deaths,

Success,

Failure;

The basic drawing-and-quartering of life.

What is that time called?