THE            DREAMER

What am I, the mystery from a social mold.

 From child's world of faded tapestries.

 My visions come from picture shows and stories told;

 Once child of Gandoif, Donald Duck, and Hercules,

 Youth's menagerie by adult dreams turned cold,

 Reason and portly facts disparage, associates displease.

 Next budding chemistry hormonal surge has taken hold.

 Lust dreams and pair bonding, each a different end;

 Why's love a fleeting state, I cannot comprehend.

 I wonder lonely as a boy called man

 Across the waste of human space;

 Blankly roaming, seeking happiness' plan;

 Through a semi-logical analysis of each case,

 No slogans burnt across my brow,

 No decals from exotic place,

 Neither Buddhas posture nor speech of Tao.

 Science--reason's path--has Christian way displaced.

 Just rules of thought, college taught,

 The rest from life's labor I have wrought

Man's world does ring a melancholy note:

 Its clang soured by schooled thought, method unforgotten.

 Plato's Parable of the Cave I often quote;

 Shadows upon the wall producing image rotten,

 Theologians' attempts, confusion they promote

 With their metaphysics and epistemology that science cannot swallow;

 Vision from materialistic philosophy that is modern I must follow.

The dreams roll across concrete pavement

 Over curb and building steps to disturbed realities

 Of opposed rebar reinforcing society's employment,

 Splattered against mutilated normalities.

 The dreams strange whisps of distant world,

 Pandora's gift creating Havocks dualities,

 Won't bend to norm, heated-tempered curled;

 Idealistic struggle against life exergues.

 Will fellow feeling's gentle stroke

 Lead to wearing of a different yoke?

 I roamed across the waste of human space:

 Through city streets, country lanes, and halls of learning

 Public conveyance, auto, peddle power, time's pace;

 Distance going nowhere, blindly yearning,

 Perchance I'd find a hidden place:

 Harmonys island, cloistered wisdoms sojourn;

 Utopia fabled, mans way for to spurn.

 Tired struggling, Barbs bright, I need her;

 Well love and sex do call, so marriage vows are taken.

 But why, why???  Though her I love, for others am so eager?

 Grown together, but perverse imp has risen,

 Medicine for boredom weakens brain, herbal smoother;

 So with lusty thrust marriage vows forsaken.

 Smiling, stoned fool, so much weaker than before;

 I've become what once I did deplore.

 Prudence tied, Pleasure's reign has led astray; 

 My needs: friendship, glitter, sports, and drugs.

 I should have known better, but vision blurred upon the way

 Obscured by comradeship, family ties, employment, I am sn

 Betray learning, honor, vision; pleasures price I pay.

 Time's pace, years tick, beloveds come and go;

 Will tenacious Wisp of other way I outgrow?

Dare I be different while in company I sip tea,

 Discuss the latest fashion, and importance of the vote.

 Lets dance and dine tonight lovely chickadee,

 And tomorrow, nature see in Lushcraft boat.   

 Suburban raised, college taught is my pedigree

 Now stretched out upon table etherized by social way,

 Drugged, hung over.  You fondly ask, "Is everything okay?"

I watch TV and dream of phallus pleasures and newer car,

 On steel steed I charge windmills of recycled trash.

 Save the seal, and eat the meat; it's popular.

 Conservation, profits they do clash,

 Oil distillate tars to pave our roads secular.

 What difference does it make if a statue is a fake,

 And a city's leveled by an earthquake?

Am I my brothers keeper?  Its beyond me.

 I pray our leaders keep our way afloat;

 Wealth's vista shrouds the blight of poverty.

 Pandora leaves me upon my love to dote.

 I once a student dissident, closet commie, hippie, devote

 My interest says, "Support the status quo."

 The poor will always be with us, Jesus told us so.

Could it be this gurgling in my stomach,

A cold numbness stretching to my toes

Comes from white wine and salmon roe? How choleric!

Malcontent rebel belly rejecting my portfolio;

Reason schooled, kicks this social heretic,

And knells, "Need gadfly maverick;

So spread ethics, science, and master rhetoric."

Twenty years the thoughts suppressed fearing folly;

to charge the windmills of conditioned reason

Armed logic and word processor to present plea clearly

"See human harmony!"  To them it is but treason,

Cause their tracks are laid, seat belted in trolley. 

Another gadfly sent to waffle the seasons.

It was Thales who first had the pluck

Armed with reason at myths to have struck.

So now I seek to leave a mark 2/3 through my life,

To rest in ink that which I do think:

Science, social justice, ethics are ways to end all s

To vie against pretentious ape, another link

And prove that truth's metal is harder than a knife.

Have I the strength to do what's right,

To show mankind the way to light?