non-lucid

Pharmascene
Beats blast. Patrons dance. Fluorescents flicker in time. This is a pharmacy, not a dance club. I am the only soul irritated by this apothecary party. When transactions are complete, finally feel a festive pull. Dive fully into the dance.

Graduation
Presentation complete. Gifted safety pins for our shoes, we disperse. Cousin Angel's unzipped lips cast unhinged spells. She is lost. Cousin Darla and her only son invite me to the beach. Strangers find it in their hearts to help. Beach is found. Lot is a confusion of cars. Cavort through chaos. My safety pin is sacrificed to see the beach.

Mouthful
Called to a prominent meeting of minds. Words can not be wound by a tongue caked with gum. Pull. Stretch. Peel. Scrape. The mass is an unending mess of stretching strands. It rips free, finally. Greeted by a fleshy mass of tongue locking glop. It is alive! Kick it to the ditch. After it all, attend the assembly in silence, still.

Lofty
Unprepared for what the teacher whips us with, two are banished to the roof. My companion, a seeming sleek 50s model, sits, smiles, studies. I amble past pillars and benches bare. Our teacher! He is John Rhys-Davies, slick in suit yet somehow still stout and angular as a son of Gloin. "They will see us!" he yells. Shoved to stones. Crushed by a shield of flesh and bone. Can't breathe. And then... all is well. Sit for a spell. 50's beauty and I soak in the sanctity of lofty lessons.

Re-membered
Bare as the day I was born, relish the rush of steam and shower. What games were played? Can not recall. My team mates names? Can not recall. It does not matter. I am one. I am now. Sing and savor this hissing stall. Too soon comes a curious reality. Pants can not fit. Enormously endowed with a member of mammoth proportions, I panic. Half naked, trapped, distorted. Wish only for the safe and shielding shambles of my home.

(Sept 23)
Remnants of scholars trickle softly through shadow swept halls. Bodies brush past one another but thoughts soar through scattered elsewheres. Trials are documented and cast upon white washed walls for all to see in the heart of a great hall. A friend finds me. Sits close. Closer. Lean on my shoulder. Slip under my arm. I am too weary to care but drape her in what comfort that my half embrace can give.

Driven
Circle side-winding streets. Curse shape-shifting signs. Neath my wheels the living lines glitch with murderous glee. Snared in this slippery scene I drive... drive... am driven mad.

Thunder Hearts
A cat says, "A dog once said that hearts are tough, like thunder." We part ways. I can do nothing but wander, ponder, wonder.

Ember
Why does time, in all its wisdom, not stamp out our stubborn spark? Despise the flighty smolder that swells when our souls trip into each other. Fight? Flight? Freeze? Fawn? Want these basic embers gone. Employ fifth F... facade. Walk behind the ancient, unmoved mask. Let me lust fires fairer than this.

Constellation
Here we stand in surging lands of bullies, baggage, and ramblers. Our trek has forked. Our birds take flight. We soar into opposite nights. I am leery, lonely, lost. I wish you well. I wish you grace. I wish you find your perfect place. Only moon and stars connect us now. We have become the constellation Chrysalis.

Dreams from September 19th.

A Shell
Grave golden. Veins shriveled. Spirits ragged, as jagged as the twisting, turning trails. Bare soles scrape cross banks and beds of iridescent disaster. Suffer glorious torture. Search for salvation in but one unfragmented shell.

Show
Seduced by gaudy glimmers and fair fueled glee. Contraptions groan. Barkers yip. Music ebbs and flows, drowns out crows, cats, and other creeping souls... like me. Dare we sink into the shoddy arms of pendulums and scramblers?

Foragers
Sisters three are starved. The fragrance of free food will not be ignored. Two weave past stops and through shops to find their fare. Third parts with bills to get her fill.

Cousin Son
I am a parent. Cousin becomes son. His mind, a masterpiece of meandering whims. A slave to his senses. He heeds with his eyes. His face must be forced toward my own before he will hear my voice. Aunt rescues him back from the mean hearted methods that must be used to maintain his composure.

Bee-ing.
Pick about posies. Sweep all shapes of bees into tiny jars. So caught up in the chore that the shire can't be seen past a handbasket of bees.

Not much to my recall this morning. Just flickers of things that I hope will trigger a fuller recall later.

1- Weight and depth lie behind parallel lines chalked upon a black board.

2- A Gandalf-esque shadow crosses my path but there is no wizard to be seen.

3 - Bliss is found in nonsensical sounds.

Betrothal
Such strangeness to be betrothed to a stranger. This union feels useless. Laughter erupts from my knotted gut. Walk out. Grin at the gathering. They glare back, strangers wrapped in Sunday best. My promised pleas for return. I run. Escape harder for the drama of it all. Find more feeling under wild skies and winding dirt roads.

Kin
Impatiently we await the arrival of all kin. Our golden seats never truly fill. One comes. One goes. We are never all there. We are never collected. We never commence.

Jaws
But for an immense jaw, the rest of her is plain. Teeth, like crackled spades shine our way. In friendship? In threat? We can not say. Snake closer. Can not angle my eyes away from the anomaly that is her mouth.

Ponies and Dragons
I know this prancing place with its waning wicks, somber songs, spirits swilling spirits. I desire sustenance, not possession. There is nothing to nourish me here. Slip through splintered portals. Step sudden into the bright. My soul alights. "Is this the Dragon?" I ask a dancer-by. A nod. A smile. A nudge into the spree. I am embraced entirely.

Note: Finally, without a doubt, made it into the Shire. There have been fleeting instances where I perhaps have been there. But they went without confirmations so I could not rightly claim them. But last night, I was there. I can confidently check 'Visit Middle Earth' and 'Visit the Shire' off my list. Now to get to that big birthday bash in Hobbiton. So close yet so far away.

No dreams recalled on the morning of the 9th.

September 10th

Stranger Party
Roused by shimmers of 'Sing around the Posy'. Know not where I am going or from where I have come. Sing our way to some stranger party. We never arrive.

Flickering Sea
Hundreds of candlesticks blaze cross twilit undulations of a clipped crop. On the fringe of this flickering sea of memories are faces. Some smile Some weep. Some seem asleep. Some stay as simple as sunless stones. I keep lighting fires.

Cast Away
Wind pours through labyrinth alleys. Like jilted rats, people scatter at sight of twisting grey. A baby is abandoned, blanket wound, near trampled. I carry the cast away. Barely elude the loveless stroke of seething heaven.

No dream recollections for the 11th.

Dreams from the 7th Drifters
Snow swift. Cars drift. Shelter in some random roadside lot. Majestic snow ploughed mountains call. Step up the steeper side... then slide. Other sanctuary seekers follow suit. We slide away the frigid day.

The Blessing
Secret spaces. Eager faces. Voices, hopeful, hushed. Spirits are alight while we plot out the night. Past Overhill we will quest for a blessing.

Nothing recalled this morning of the 8th.

Hockey Hill
Nephew and I occupy some fresh new space. It seems slung onto the side of a victorian frame. Deliveries, non stop, of hockey flyers, tickets, equipment. They become a hill of unwanted hockey slop. Who do the deliverers think lives here?

Old Friend
A familiar old field. A very old friend. Walk. Talk. Laugh. Here lies an ease, like the comfortable chorus of some distant childhood hymn. We are grateful, in these golden hours, for reunification. But a familiar storm surges and screams us apart. "See you next lifetime?" inquires old friend. Hands clasp. Shake. Our paths surge apart once again.

Millar's
Return to the corner store in which I first worked. Wrapped in a miserable maze of aisles and piles of unpriced produce. One cash register is replaced by three small tablets. Numbers bewilder both the tablets and my tangled mind. Malfunctions all around. Strive to serve the same two customers for two hours straight. They patiently wait. I loath this place.

Quest
Mandalorian soars. Settle. Sky streaked scarlet. Earth unstable, cracks, crumbles, conforms. No escape. Execution of this quest means execution of an entire world... stranded included. Set out to find a beautiful view to escort us to our ends.

Friends?
Upon claustrophobic intersection the players set their stage. Stop and stare at the scene, some dark and dreary form of Friends. Their dire jam? Their tiny car has only five seats. Whatever shall they do?

Old Rock
Rollick about a festival dedicated to decades old rock. Stars are ragged, leather bound and silver crowned, crooning cob web breath. Danced backstage. Intoxicated by centuries of dim rock star shine I am near intertwined into an orgy of motley proportions. An anchor saves the day.

Walkers
Walk roads familiar yet unfamiliar. Waterfalls and rivers unwind where once stood only marsh and murky wood. Wander onto a dirt road with ditches drenched in wildflower dapples. Ahead lumbers a barefoot lady. Clumps of nonsense drip from her lips. We speak not, least not to each other. Copses collapse before rolling fields of green and sheets of summery sky. Wonder if the Shire's nearby.

Sibling Storm
Clouds rush. Crush into a twisted gob of angry grey. Stash siblings safe underearth. Spin. Face the storm. Stare straight into each others scorn. Sky shifts, roars, lurches near. I fall to fear. Fear? Fear! Breath through cinched nostrils and smile. But all hope of lucid schemes is stolen by siblings wild in the wind.

I remembered two more dreams this morning and now regret not writing them down.