BE (WHERE YOU ARE)

BE (WHERE YOU ARE)

When you are sleeping, sleep./ Be where you are..../  Don’t wonder when/the bulb died. Fix it./ Or tell

someone else to. --- Hannah Stephenson, “Moondust”, The Storialist

Or why dream at all? You will kick the flannels

off, thrash the sheets, strangle faultless pillows,

moan or giggle between snores or wheezing, or

perhaps whimper your saddest fare-thee-wells

(goodbye-cruel-world sobbing), or call a name

you caught across a crowded room, some such.  

Beware the nightmare lurking as a wan wraith

of your most cherished dreams: they will skew

reel-like slowmo runs through verdant meadows

into frenzied train-chasing pleas for love’s sake.

Either way, dreaming a nightmare into a haven

of glorious lifetimes, a plenitude of joy and love,

remains the refuge of the fearful and defeated.

Be where you are: warm, asleep, under flannels.

---Albert B. Casuga

04-07 -12

This poem, an experiment in the marrying of elements of a sonnet and sweetelle (a la Alison Joseph and Luisa Igloria), is our seventh in April (celebrating National Poetry Month). Thanks to Ohio poet Hannah Stephenson for her poem "Moondust" which triggered this poem-a-day effort.