Shafts

“During the day we drive shafts into our fresh trains

of thought, and these shafts make contact

with dream thoughts. This is how night and day

fertilize each other.”

                                                     ~Sigmund Freud

The moment we close our eyes,

they pull up our anchors

and make their way in,

marauding, freeloading, 

they themselves are blind, 

in need of no light

to enact their dramas.

Each story begins with

losing our bearings,

anesthetized by 

sheer comfort

on a soft slab,

and though paralyzed

we move about freely

as if we are not a prisoner.

Our eyes adjust to the light

because it is our own.

In other words,
we light the world with ourselves

even when our bodies

lie rooted in darkness.

There is no sense of time,

only moments that feel accurate,

relevant, ever expressionistic.

Here, time is a canvas

with no north or south.

All that matters

is that we be made to

feel things.

And so at night 

they are mere verbs,

fluid, feeling, moving.

We can only react.

Everything around us

is here to break us down;

whether sadness, joy, danger,

hopelessness, anger, fear,

or most importantly,

fear’s opposite: love.

This is how our stories

take their shape.

They wear our clothes,

unless we do not.

More than once

they will find themselves

swaddled in ill-fitting gowns

and expected to accept

whatever happens…

We, on the other hand,

 are always at the center,

as we are,
for all intents and purposes,

happening to ourselves.

What comes comes unbidden.

In all likelihood

we are at our own mercies,

though this slight understanding

is arrived at

only in hindsight.

In this way there are two of us:

one that is and one 

that can only remember;

one in night and one at day.

One lives vividly amid

landscapes propped up

on poles by Dali.

The others ~  all in masks. 

Peter Valentyne

January 11th, 2019