I have a confession to make, I said. I drink to forget all
That my failings and foibles beget. Sobriety
Sends me to most fitful sleep. No rest for he who in his unwaking hours
Mulls over the wine of his life, which he sours
With his own cork of guilt and self-conscience. All mine self-confidence
Derives from Contradictions repressing. Catatonic sleep of great notoriety
Is my limbo, my heaven, perchance my sick death. The
Removal of a blot on the face of this land should solicit, I fear, cornet
Mouthed angels to sound clarion of victory. If I was religious
I should become a flagellant invigilate most excellent
Flayed as the poacher would the pheasant.
And the landowner would the poacher.

Silence from both. I take a drought from my drink, she a small sip.
She looks at me and I look a way.
Do you want me to pay for this? She asks. Just the tip
Quoth I. Another drought and a sip.

Another.

I break down. I have nothing to believe in,
To believe in foul dogma to wash my soul of sin
I find repugnant. Belief in Progress and people and
The wonder of Nature is akin to praying to the inconstant sand
Castle made by the hand of a passing child.
Belief in my girlfriend! More my love’s greatest failure
To grant her the care and affection she deserves
Due to my sand castle of pride in which I do serve.
And thus do I say, to purge all my lust
There’s only one way, in Self-disgust I trust.

This is the theatre of bubblegum dread
A daily dose of drama for your head
Mythic proportions, gloomy with steam
It made the top ten in your dreams
Avant-garde and ancient still
Calm but violent is his will
Here’s a dose for your blood and spine
Subtract those who ain’t alive
Apocalyptic, judging sneer
Fields of green by yellow smeared
Pure expressions of existence and joy
But school is out, no more films or ploys
Surrender to the unwaking moments
Soul of a clown, basked in loneliness
Psychological heart trip-up
Be careful or you might get stuck
Storms roll by when you’re with your cosmic mate
A chess game for the ******, a wave to fate
Drowned the lizard in a make-believe Rhine
It only cost you about three dimes

Wasting, staring at the ceiling
Ever staring; never truly seeing.
Time, ever sliding, escaping.
Brain decaying, forever melting,
Onto the pillow top draining,
In hours spent unwaking.

In a computer-world, living
Never thriving, only existing.

Missed the clock by an hour late waking
I woke drenched, needing quenched
A wrench for my brain that's unsteady
And in the undertaking.
These ol' bag o bones are tired
Need more sleep,
Eyelids sagging
I need restful peace.
Hard flesh,
Unwaking eyes
No work today, I'll take advantage of living
Ill catch northern California's
High rise.

worlds within
and without are all waning
insatiable
chaos
vacuum
the void
which sat between heavens
heavens splitting the waters
the waters, the weeds
create living geometries

etch-a-sketch drawings
of silent mandalas

now the dreamweaver
lotus
now the lucid unwaking ones
who appear at your bedside
disdaining your closet

while you lie
awake
sleeping
hypnogogically paralyzed
their eyes burning green
freeze your skies
red
as

Christ
comes

you
trapped in misogamy
you
flying through tattered air
you
****** off this oxygen
burned by the stare
of a mirror

The seance,
Between my heart and mind,
Serves to intertwine,
My thoughts I might find,
Buried in my heart,
The kinds that tear me from my feet,
Up till the moments I've died.

Every unwaking second,
Is a moment I find,
That my heart and mind,
Can be...

Alone.

~Robert van Lingen

I have noticed before -
How seconds slow into hours, hours into days
And days into nights, but nothing more -
They do not exist, as I miss Entirety
Like trying to fall asleep within
The cold embrace of a specter,
Blistered fingers lay waste upon
An unending dream where I'm with her -
My mental state collapses, forlorn
Are the words that had extracted
Such breath from my lungs, gone
Is my soul, once recollected.

In volatility my emotions know not
Where they lie, so instead they lie dormant,
Unwaking, in hopes that they can be slaked,
Unslaked, until I can be once more
Awake.

Then the dream,
if it was the dream
stole me away from the waking, running through
the shadow of eyes which shadowed the eyes and,
nose candy, clear white,
cut by the knife of the unwaking night,
sped by the jet stream into one more run fast dream,
if it was the dream.

I climbed Everest then, in the dream
if it was the dream,
infinitely exciting, the backdrop lighting
up the snow, but cold, so cold.

I wear away, like the mountain
I crumble more every day
and one day when the dream,
if it was the dream, comes,
it will come to steal me and
find the real me
waiting.

midnight
a blinking blue light in the dark
unseen by the eyes closed to sleep
one
caught in dreams unwaking
free in the world of the mind’s making
two
the room fills with slow breaths
a clock ticks, the light blinks with unrest
three
outside the stars shine down
the moon passes behind a cloud
four
everything is quiet, is peaceful
lost in a night increasingly deceitful
five
the blinking light ceases, phone dead
as dreams continue to flood the head
six
nothingness
no witnesses
seven
the time to awaken passes
sleep continues, late for classes
eight
panic ensues, phone lays forgotten
rushing to school without cation

Nine to Nine
passing time, look around quick
missing partner in crime, must be home sick
how rude to leave me here, alone, a day feels like a year
rushing home, so much to do, homework to go through
dinner with the family, shove it in fast
remember the dead phone at last
the charge is climbing steadily
but slowly, too gone to use readily
finally charged, the blinking is back

ten
one missed call, one voicemail, one text
explain it all
eleven
go to sleep, after letting many tears fall
unable to do anything but withdraw
midnight
no light blinks, no message awaits
no partner in crime, no god, no fate

O Sacred Morning,
I long for unwaking’s sweet embrace
Elusive are dreams unfinished, sorrowed
And lost

Pray thee return dark slumber
Restful limbs abandoned, worry on the make
Harken back to sleep, dear one,
my rest not yet complete

I must cease my busy mind and calm this weary body
Sleep still, sleep again
Not yet…
For the sacred morn.