As I slept, I dreamt. I had a dream that I was living on the sidewalk, on a corner on a rainy day. People passed unseeing, not noting our being there. As I looked down the walk I could see a tarp, dozens of feet long covering an encampment where we, huddled together barely touching, slyly acknowledging each other’s presence and silently schemed to move outward and find new ground. Passersby kicked up puddle water and splattered us as I covered myself more fully in canvas. We, having a loose gang, moved on as it is in dreams. There was an apartment with a sad man and plastic food, men touched women’s covered breasts, the implication of a nipple showing on a full chest. Needles full of drugs manifested and disappeared as things do in dreams. We were here and there, and alliances were born and faded away.

And, while on the surface, it seems a sad dream or a bad dream, it was clarifying in a way. It was revealing.

I composed the start of this as I lay in bed. The rest I finished this morning.

We live in the under, over the ground, 
Touching, a little, to feel a connection.
We huddle, with the debris of life coming down on us,
and are pelted by the mess of living. 
We team 
and scheme 
and venture 
into the cacophony of existing, 
peering forward while 
watching our back. 
We visit the plastic fortress, 
up the stairs, 
to conclave 
in the unnatural quiet that is 
its own private noise. 
Each one,
a royal in their cube, 
a clergy presiding 
over a synod 
intending to master the maze. 
All while the laity each see 
their own circle and 
their own intent. 
Plan, 
confer, 
execute, 
wheel & deal:
a billion plans, 
a billion ends, 
none quite what they wished, 
none done to spec, 
no end meeting the desire. 
And the train rolls on and on,
not noting the mosquito, 
on the windshield, 
clinging, 
to nothing, 
for dear life