The Dream Reader

Pages of the Ulysses begin to jerk

Between a vile jaundiced light and

The dawn of my murky sleep

In the ruins of my conscious mind, they lurk:

Archers, who shoot rippling arrows

Into the night, into the deep -

Into each word, though the already blurring

Martello closes its Arrow loops,

Drooping eyelids, tiresome

And the peculiar phrases rush, slurring

For cover, Joyce left unwounded,

As the speaker renders dumb,

Odysseus; peerless hero - how bizarre!

To have lurched on the edge of reason,

Fearlessly defeating every peril,

Whilst immersing yourself in sins - for you are

Only man, whilst you dream, whilst you wish.

Lusting, proud, feral!

When darkness pervades, and clarity prevails,

Once moral and modest armour cracks,

Stripped, stark, bare fragility

If Anubis could call and bring his scales

To weigh fantasy and thought

Against the foulness nobility,

Would we cower in shame? At the mistake

Of feeling passion and creativity

Weighed against a feather

(She would bitterly laugh if she were awake)

For she is sick to the point of sloth

Gluttonous from the

Guilt society feeds her

So she’d surrendered to fictional tales,

Relished the idiosyncrasies

Characters pertained, for their

Echoing voices seemed to fill her sails,

Insidious whispers of observers

Slowly made her aware:

Between shallow pretence and pathetic desire

To belong, sincerity lies and lies,

Desperately searching for a sense of purpose

Only to return senseless

Only to have discovered

My vices co-exist with my virtues

2 form and express a sophisticated judgment of (a literary or artistic work) : a literary text may be criticized on two grounds: the semantic and the expressive.

This is what I meant by criticise, in case you are wondering, James.