This October dawn,

my mind is studded with boulders;

gray, black,

transferred from rocky dreams;

hard, austere leftovers

from nocturnal stone fields

& the steep screes of Morpheus,

disappearing into an ominous Doré cloud cover

I still, this moment, navigate these barren badlands,

well past the 2nd cup of coffee,

grains of sand crackling 'tween my teeth,

my body stretched out on its back on the bed

in a meaty star's pale existence,

in an involuntary mimicry

of a skipper's (Aquarius remigis) shadow

over a sandy bottom of shallow waters

under a blistering summer sun

My mind is at stake

in a rock-full of the symbolism

of honest dreams,

having me climb across,

or navigate in between these same,

repetitious, sharp & edgy bodies

at the bottom of gravity, past breakfast,

past an old man's medications,

into this lucid wake-scape

of the tactile present,

which always keeps a blinding eye out

for these illicit lettrisms on the verge,

these motionless screes of sentences;

words that keep tumbling

through a life lived

through a series of mugshots,

flashing across these barren vistas;

mirages of distant slopes & ridges,

appearing smooth as silk, as lace,

albeit on approach

just another aggressive scree of boulders

caught off-guard,

petrified in their ancient ambush

through millennia of patient erosion