[POEM] Contemplations Before Dawn by Philip Haggard Berry

Downtown Austin Texas at Dawn

Contemplations Before Dawn 

by Philip Haggard Berry

sign post up ahead

is this "now"?

where am I? who am I?

do I now, or did I ever know, "how"?

or, am I dead

 

just the same old dreary same old. work, drink, sleep a drugged sleep, wake and work, then drink, then sleep a drugged sleep

it's never "tomorrow" 

only ever forever "now"

 

The same shit creeps into my head, like slow shadows in twilight, edging on towards the dark night

lit only by the pinprick stars and the unholy moon

the same old shit

what ever became of my dreams?!

I've created. . .things. . .all of my own. . .

music and poetry

stories short and long

an almost endless sea of expressions

of my. . .my soul?

I don't know if that exists. . .

I have, ever so vague memories, to suggest I clawed my way up from a deep dark lost place

Into this existence

intimations that I stole this body, and am an alien in borrowed flesh

ever so vague memories of a place "before" all this

where there was no "form"

only idea, the shadow of a form,

a dream of the real 

 

And yet, here I am, no excuses

others can see me, hear me, and interact

so I must be. . .at the very least "somewhat" real

exiled royalty of a darker class

cast out and out cast

 

Time, in this place of flesh and pain,

moves so fast

I've lost focus

I've lost the drive and the will

and the desire

to change and move on

I'd like to say I'm lost,

but here I am, I know where I am, so how can I be lost. . .

only my dreams are lost, and if that's where I came from, from a land of dreams,

then what am I doing here, in the real, in the stark light of a burning sun

 

I call to my god-totem, I pray to my dragon, dead but dreaming in the icy depths of the abyss

I beseech I pray

for a sliver of help

guidance

a little push forward

but nothing

nothing comes

 

And so I drift

just drifting

glancing down at the rift between the "real" and the "dream"

and wondering all the while

which to choose