2002-07-12 - 3:36 a.m.

Ghazal of Dreaming
for Brian

I have dreamt of someone's death; also the deceased returning.
On waking, one confirms the present, the other serves to condemn it.

Last night it was a scene of running in the rain.
And when the skies cleared a boy offered me a feather.

No witnesses to the crimes I commit in my sleep.
I enter with no motives and exit without alibis.

Teach me to distinguish the foreground from the background.
These three black horses or that sobbing in the grass?

Long shadows are sketched by a low-hanging moon.
A stone lantern beckons in a garden of toads.

'We awaken to the real, which discards emotions for the image.'
In this manner, Alfian, all art is the dissolving of a dream.

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