All Muddled Up as if a Nightmare, Us
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
In dreamland you returned to me from death.
Because our dreams are strange, strange, strange without
Compassion, colorless as Arctic breath
From ghosts, this dreamland presence brought bald drought
Instead of you. The dream was not you. No.
It was a young man lacking face and hair.
He took my arm and guided me. The glow
Around him was not acid but was spare
Of love since dreams drag pitiless across
Our brains. His arms had bristles on their skin,
The bristles of forgetfulness. Their gloss
Was false, as false as needle-jabbing sin.
He walked with me together through a room
