Palimpsest

Foreshadowing
“ To sleep, perchance to dream “

Do Dreams foretell?
Are they harbingers of things
That hover ever nearer,
Like vultures circling, descending
Ever closer to roost and feast
On decaying flesh and bone?
Make ready the winding sheet.
Prepare my tomb, my solemn bier,
Rehearse the Psalms,
Tune the pipes, shake off the dust
From sombre suits and mourning veils.
I feel their need is growing near.

The ghosts of last night’s haunting tale
Retain a lingering, oppressive air
That shades, infusing these early hours,
Belying sun and morning breezes.
Not me, but one I know too well.
Dear friend, a close relation
( neither here nor there )
But close enough to feel their presence
Peering over my shoulder.
Miasmas drift around my face
O’re-coming all efforts to brush away,
Demanding to be written down,
Pinned to a sheet beneath a glass
To bear examination, to peer behind,
Pull back the curtain to reveal
The Freudian meaning
Of what it means.

Was this a dream of portent,
A Dickensian tale from Camden Town,
Offering hope of true redemption?
Or echoing the words learned long ago
“Giving sweet foretastes of the festal joy”?
Neither sweet nor festal
For this is a fate I no longer fear,
But do not yearn to hasten.
Not yet.

It followed an elaborate script
Complex and almost logical,
Both detailed and revealing,
All the harder to dispel.
The cause of Morpheus’s mischief
Has spawned so many theories,
From guilt to conflict resolution,
From life-lesson’s rehearsals,
To blind firings within our neural net

No matter.

Despite the lingering effect
Or its power to affect my future course,
It was, at the very least,

Entertaining