(Hypnos- God of Sleep
Eros- God of Love
Nyx- Goddess of Night)

ME:
I closed my eyes
And met 3 strangers
Whose names I knew but,
Could not express.
They stood with grace and prowess,
Each one grander than the next.
They petitioned me to ask them,
Anything at all,
So I asked them about dreams,
Given to us by gods.

HYPNOS:
A weak internal monologue,
Lapsing into night.
They sleep and breathe
So slowly,
They sleep; and breathe so deep.

EROS:
Their dreams I clouded,
Tinged, with crimson haze.
They long for one another,
They long;
To find each other.

NYX:
The dream ends now!
As my darkness overwhelms.
They no longer need to think,
They drink;
As to forget.

ME:
Pretence keeps up my dreaming,
Innerspeaker of my thoughts,
Past tense reveals it all:
Groundskeeper
To my soul.

An arrow from your quivers
Surely would do the job,
Of a thousand
Quarts of liqour
Or novocaine, or god.

NYX:
When you see light
You will see clearly,
The truth of misery.
Though I know nothing of such light,
The darkness lives in me.

EROS:
Soon your day will come,
To feel as all the rest.
The burning fire of passion,
Bellowing wild,
A fire without smoke.

HYPNOS:
And now as you awake,
Arise! Dear sir, go forth,
Knowing of what you learned,
In this episode,
This dream.

If there ever was a golden age
The smile on the cherubim’s grill,
Wistfully look into her eyes,
Devoted to her algorithms---
Like Christine there are no eyes,
Desoto algorithms---if there
Ever was a golden age
She’s sleeping in,

Evolutionarily destroyed by fire---
Mysteriously her eyes go blank,
Blank for all eternity,
If there ever was an algorithm
For the golden age---she was one---
For a quarter of eternity or an hour
Show her the pile of stones
The men will use

Saints go under the bridge
While over the bridge go the lions---
Her bones thick and mammalian
If there ever was a golden age of stripping,
She was there, her ideas and sciences
dawning on troglodyte mankind---

Black rose, with seam of gold,
Visions penetrate the air
With mysteries untold.
An ancient word spoken,
A waxen seal is broken;
Crow's flight stabs the sky,
As blood flows from a lie.
Poisoned knowing,
Wisdom divine.
Wind of change blowing,
We perceive the sign.
All our days are counted
And seen from above.
All our fears surmounted
When we take flight in love.

Ancient stone vibrating with life sighs deeply in my memory
In my mind my feet still explore
The hidden paths of that fair city
Peace permeates my spirit as I lay dreaming
Of broad greens and cloistered gardens
Shaded courtyards of quiet blooms
Of wood-worked halls and book lined rooms
Her subtle charm, her poised beauty
Warm heart beating even beneath the snow
To inspire , to teach and to sow
In the hearts of all who know her
The seeds of joy, of love, of loyalty
Reaped in measure from us all
We who have walked her cobblestone streets
And awakened to her tolling bells
Even across the miles and years
My soul resonating in time with hers
And I am there again, walking out of mist and woods through slanting sunbeams
Curving around carved towers
And all around and within there is light

This evening, the sun has set in raspberry blush and apricot.
Beckoning down with it those trees that shift through emerald tones the shadowed grass has forgot.
She lies draped, feasting, curved - carved not in marble but with
the ochre the trees leak when the sun is high
Deep and rich. Hands dig into figs and pull the insides out, ******* the ambrosia dry
Leaving fingertips dripping in rose-hip gold oil
myrrh that lights up that dusky soil
So when you touch the ground here, the mud is soft like the moonlight over her
And the juniper berries oft get stuck between your teeth
and make the air taste sweet.
Reflections in water mark no shimmering Daphne. She is flesh and blood
That desires not only to eat, drink and dance
But to feel full in her heart, to cry when needed
Flawed as a child is. She pulls her hair back from her face too regularly
and spits out cherry stones like a boy unimpeded.
And above her head soft stars form in Ariadne's guise
A vision of rich apples and pears, dark by midnight skies.

Deep below the surface,
of a sea stormy and frenetic;
lies buried an ancient relict,
once radiant but now pathetic.
It is a long ago sunken ship
the mast and canvas rotten.
The stern revealing injuries,
that are not yet forgotten.
It once carried adventurers,
looking for brand new land;
But now it's decrepit and cursed,
never to reach a strand.
But if you would look closer,
to the shattered and mouldered deck,
you would see the dissembled treasure,
that waits to be found within every wreck.

Words have always enraptured me
once written they become history
devour them I must
before they turn to dust
once more becoming a mystery

You will know, you'll feel the change,
That calls on parts of you most strange,
And through the wooded halls, you'll pass,
To gather for Its ancient mass.

The fallen towers' decaying bark,
Will harbor haunts of growing dark,
The slime will sweat, the crawlers teem,
You will not wake, this is no dream.

Descending into rotting cold,
You'll hear Its voices, deep and old,
And when their song has chilled your bone,
You'll know that you are not alone.

The path will dim and fall to end,
The soil below, itself shall rend,
The wyrm within shall rise without,
With blackened fur and horned snout.

And surely as the lichens gnaw,
It opens up its snarling maw,
The void beyond the smiling tooth,
Revealing long-forgotten truth.

Alliteration and assonance
Are what we need to make words dance.
Pretty poetic practices percolate the page,
As apples happily meet our approval and appreciation.
Words have music
As surely as the sun
Gives light.
And all these things
Are older than the hills.

Paul Butters