Dreamers 

Anonymous

We met in

room 1111 at 11PM.

There were 4 of us

in folding chairs.

Mine had several 

initials scratched

into the seat.

None of them

 mine.

A naked lightbulb

hung from a cord

like a suicide

of counterfeit light.

The instructor was female.

She called us inheritors.

Her voice was 

wholly masculine.

I took notes.

Dreams are a misnomer.

Dreams are tired.

We must never

call them dreams

and for God’s sake

never nightmares.

As above so below,

or in our case

as below so above.

You are a crossroads.

Think of your

days as horizontal,

your nights as vertical.

You are travelers

to a dimension

where no rules apply.

You are the crux.

You are here because

you have a talent

for abandonment.

You relinquish yourselves.

Your bodies are

vessels, airborne

and sea-worthy.

I am essentially

addressing

4 beached boats.

All that can remain

is memory,

and memory is

subject to 

cessation.

The instructor 

then presented

flash cards.

Toad. 

Pine cone.

Fairy. 

Stone.

Tooth. 

Grave.

Bird. 

Cloud.

She resorts

to mathematics.

If a bird

in the hand

is worth

two in the bush,

how much is

an egg worth?

No one 

dares say.

Again

she challenges

our associations.

Nothing we think

is right.

An artist never

resorts to blueprints.

On the contrary,

we are thieves

who can leave 

no prints.

Not where we’ve gone

or are going.

We are here

because we agree

each night

for the dark

to steal us away.

The question is

who or what is

having its way

with us?

Our beds are

a crucible.

Vulnerability, 

our only 

requirement.

For now, as we

are novices (ha!)

we lack stamina.

We are not 

in the saddle.

She loops

an imaginary rope

and casts it forward.

Later, she implies,

we will have

a newborn 

fortitude.

I am happy

to be a baby

again.

The pock-marked man

asks how can 

surrender

ever lead to

command

or personal 

jurisdiction?

An egg head,

I assume.

We can’t help 

but think.

A commander

knows how to

surrender,

she corrects.

Are we going

into battle,

I ask on the inside. 

She responds

as if she heard me.

You are all

your own

civil wars.

So what are we

fighting for, I ask.

All this war imagery,

really?

Mastery, she answers

bluntly.

To quote Blake,

You are 

the marriage

of heaven and hell.

There are no Gods,

nor are there devils.

No countries,

only nameless lands.

There is consciousness

and unconsciousness.

Asleep or awake.

If you hadn’t guessed

already, you are 

more asleep

in the day

and more awake

in the night.

That is why

you are here.

This is where

our work 

must begin.

Peter Valentyne

August 4th, 2020