Dreams Forever Awake

A father dreams of getting it right

finally

succumbs to sweat drenched nightmares

Somewhere

he stumbles about

to clear the room

guitar

videogames

posters

Broad stairs to the garage

once of stable hardwood

now rickety rotted support

creaking of memories crushed

once plush carpet soft with warmth

now but cold cinders beneath his feet

Sensory deprivation smiles

releases starving glimpses of love

once bathed by generous moonlight

spilling from window

to banister

to door

to now barren concrete

Here

children’s eyes once visualized

what freedom’s wheels would be like

The father wanders outside

stares blankly on the gray-white night

reflecting off algae encrusted pool

now with but deflated basketball

adrift

Through surrounding weeds and shrubs

GI Joe action figures shimmer their loneliness as well

staring like him at the pool’s granite carved beachhead

imagination’s vast ocean of backyard fantasy

now quiet

make-believe war

since reduced to the calm of real battles lost

jungle rot’s toxic fumes

saturating all

no prisoners taken

history

The scuffling of his slippers

rake the humid night’s heaviness

like sandpaper dragging across

memory’s fine threaded tapestry

Lying down among the overgrowth

he peers through broken limbs

crumbling leaves

moon

water

house

Eyes squeezed shut deliver regret’s creative gallery

a lifetime installation

perhaps never meant to be walked through

yet…

Such are musings

sometimes destined

to be but nightmares

while

dreams remain forever awake

in the heart