What Old Dream

How The Hand

What little hand was it that scribbled to cross my dreams in the night? In the grayish wet night of uncertain stomach grumbles, warbling in sheer mob clack-Sturm. And drawn across your face is the tum-tum-tattoo of the startling goat-face drum. Symbols in the mist and my fears born into the flood. The child plays alone in the cloud twister. The child with the burnished, sun-warmed face gathering sights for a future of long pleasures. We feel too guilty to write with only the short pleasures of creature cravings in mind. And that is how the hand becomes the author, warning away time until this busted galaxy relents and all and everyone finally relent: effort is the essence: the fuel and dirt of the world under drunken fire. Grist and gristle for the million millions. It's enough. It's never finished. And any ending that could be written will always hound us with the ghosting moan of lack.