Dreaming

Dreaming isn’t thinking,

That hypnogogic sinking

Into the unblind unblinking.

Its images are un-clocked

Memories, mostly mocked

Distortions of what we are now,

Hurt children crying “Ow!”

We meet there the half known,

Not projected but shown

Us for no intelligible reason,

A fifth, black and white, season,

If wish fulfillment, unfilled,

Or a silent movie unbilled.

Though occasional nightmares

Will scare us with dead stares,

Only awake will we, screaming,

Take for real the seeming,

Mistake the dream for meaning.