From my nuclear cradle

of life support

     in distant dream,

I hear the train at Twelve Bells

     upon the tracks:

far off but coming closer,  

closer.



Through a lens of smoke and mirrors melting,

I see faces staring and my son gazing as if at an isolated star,

and feel a felt-sense they’re all frozen in time.



I hear and sense the silence of an empty room

where a lone television broadcasts white light

and wonder

where have I been:

is this only dream ?

The train at Twelve Bells

crosses an edge of dream  

as seamless boundaries part like cinema curtains opening,

which let it pass.



A rider in silence approaches

     

from another dream out of the past:

moving steadily

yet paradoxically also….. stilled amidst the Omniverse.

     In a garden far beyond

vacant rooms where television’s white light is cast,

a different restless dream moves in ebb and flow.

     New light, even a purer white

     blinds my eyes yet in that whiteout void,

strangely I see your face frozen among time’s markers there             in a resplendent garden where in all reality, time is not.



The train at Twelve Bells thunders past that garden  

     and though now high noon,

     dream sheds quite a different light than noonday bright:

I cry out

upon seeing the train’s Engineer too, is motionless in time.

Thinking fast

in dreamtime,

I leap from one dream to another,

     and then jump into an open freight car

as the train at Twelve Bells slows.

I stand between parted side doors

and take in a surreal view

     passing

     in slow motion:

          images

          are all from future dreams.

       











Technicolor pictures flow as if from all of my life future passed,

and the lives of others too

     morph forward

     right in front of my eyes;

     lifetimes of both the known

     and unknown…

          though in a night vision-like sense of six sense,

          all are somehow familiar.   







                  

Feeling intense déjà vu like a soft cyclone closing,

many images I struggle now to place.

Though rational,

I feel as if in delirium,

     swirling, whirling ‘round and down

and see two figures at sunset;

     one’s my brother, and the other you ?  

I view vision-like, eerie futuristic machinery supporting them,

and the shallow lagoon in which they stand.





Still standing

between open side doors of the freight car,

I feel a rush of astonishment

and paranormal thrill:

my loins fill with pulsing, near erotic warmth

as when  

the moment expands like stretched out rubber bands,  

and I look down to see the train is traveling now     

silently just above

open water.



My eyes fill with pinpoints of violet light

and feel as though two magnified Mantis lens:

I observe dreamily

that we’re moving up what seems a great river,

its waters somewhat restless.



There

in front, slightly off to one side

are two boats with tanned water skiers in tow,

appearing flash frozen in time.



We slowly pass them.

I gaze below:

my mind reels and head seems to float above my body

as we travel in silence

just a few feet over crystal clear water.



Feeling a sensate memory of heat and passion

from past summer suns of love and silenced time,

I brace myself

as the train begins to veer oddly

to the right.

What had appeared as waters of a river

become now completely still.

We’re entering a backwater: the train slows further.

I stare

and hear a whooshing sound

     then spin ‘round.

The solid backside of the railcar vanishes

     with the noise as if a massive suction cup

          pulled from a wall.



Gazing mesmerized,

my knees quaver while I take in a sight well beyond

any of the known world.

I turn slowly ‘round:

the waterway has narrowed and the train’s barely moving.

To my left I see what appears to be a small tugboat

made as if of light brown paper:

imprinted upon my mind’s movie screen

are bare trees  

     softened by a winter’s foggy freeze.



Gigantic Eucalyptus trees tower

from the embankments,

completely out of place:

they’ve no leaves and are paper smooth  

     - - limbs are draped with Spanish moss

          and appear dusted with snow.



All manner of ‘house’ boats

and livable smaller yachts

are loosely moored to pilings set

among thick green reeds lining water’s edge,

where modest sailing vessels

are also sandwiched in,

     their masts rising

     toward cobalt blue skies.

Strangely, all the water craft  

bear the illusion that

     they’re coated with snow.

Even more astonishingly,

exotic birds of startling beauty

     are perched

     about the various vessels:

     their exotic song breaks

     on the still air.



No sign of human life.



The train at Twelve Bells moves slowly on,

seeming to slide just above the water

then veers sharply again

     slowly creating a ‘U’ formation

     with my ‘freight car’ at the hub of that ‘U,’

and comes to a stop.

Looking straight ahead,

I view what appears to be a massive painting  

displaying two beveled-glass French doors,

of incredible satin sheen:



Although resembling an enormous picture,

the doors are completely three dimensional.

Gazing through them,

I observe a carousel

of multiple ‘realities’ progressively passing,

     then step toward the doors

     and I reach for their golden handles:

     they are locked.



Staring through the bluish leaded glass,

a tall figure statuesque in winter greets my field of vision.



That figure gradually passes from view:

now my son is shown trapped  

     …..seeking escape but motionless as if a mime

     in narrow panorama  

taking the tall, wintry figure’s place.

There are partial walls displayed

     as if those of a house.





The haunting scene   

slowly leaves my sight

and is replaced by a winter landscape

lit by a full moon:

     surreally beautiful but chilling.

A road portrayed forms into a tunnel,

     leading somewhere, perhaps to another world

     but not revealed.



The winter setting

slowly fades

like a gradual molecular dispersion

and

mammoth streetlamps set in twilight,

come into full view.

          The amber streetlights illume old memories,

                    among which you haunt me like a ghost in the wood;

                    as does a time that was and is no more.

There’s a profound silence; seemingly a life form all its own,

     pressing down with powerful force.   





The lamps steadily pass away and twilight fades:

for some while

I see only white light above and water below

through the ‘lens’ of the great French doors.



Then as if a mist condensing

     and uncannily creating a picture

upon an immense windowpane,

I watch a scene form as if alive:

a stranger lights many lanterns in a dream forest

     which my son and I once roamed before many grey dawns

     …..until he fell asleep, never again to wake.



I stare mesmerized for hours.

Thinking ceases.

I seem to drift out into distorted time and space.

Then like a page having been turned,

the sight is gone.

I gaze at

     what now appears a tapestry slowly unfurling downward

of my son sitting before a setting sun, frozen in time.

This was his last.







Seems I’ve traveled light years

     in this dream of a dream within dreams spread outward

     like fingers of a fine marbled hand,

on the train at Twelve Bells:

don’t know where I am, it’s so beyond all that’s real.

The enormous painted French doors as gateway   

     to a looking glass land of past, present and future dreams

are locked

     and you from another universe, haunt me as if my shadow:

     you’re here but not, life without you is living frozen in time.

Often I dream freezing tears: I can’t hear you in deep space.



And my son….. sleep on, sleep on in a time that is no more.