you beguile me      
with your talking dead  
who said dreams
were of the future?  
my history flickers  
through my REMs
like a trailer for a movie  
I did not choose to watch…  
crumbling gray walls
around my mother’s home  
my father confusing
some interloper for my lost sister  
extending his hand to her,
from the grave, good naturedly,  
in the flatlands of life  
I feared him
even now, feeble on the floor
of this flowing dream
he has power to perplex  
by appearing, by simply taking milky shape and form  
reminding me he once was there
and that I must let him go  
and my mad mother as well    
but I am not running the projector  
when I slumber, again, and again    
they and the other fallen actors  
can grace the screen  
and all I can do
is open my eyes
to a deeper dream