Strong Dreams

As merciless Summer loosens her grip
And my rooms breathe free again
The cooling air conveying
Clarity and composure
Moisture and strong breezes
Something in that dying of the
Imperial tyrant season
Brings something awake in me.

Like a company returning from
Plague-days exile
Like players returning to the
Old Smoke itself

These clearing winds bring
To my fretful rest
Those players to sing
And such dramas enact
My skull does ring

Such little stuff the modern dream
A soulless churning
Of day's loose chaff
Or the random firing
Of Reptilian brain
Stuff and nonsense
And spare little toys
Long broken in the handling
Of the waking mind
These scientists must
Dream in the hot and airless
Rooms of Summer

When the season is dying
The darkness brings
Shattering lightning
Bright and bloody colored
Clear-eyed and terrible
Mourning, grief and
Rages of righteous anger
Such furies as never fired
My living world alight.

What is it that wakes this
Playwright of the spine
From sharp air to wring
Strong dreams?

9/2/02