This is a poem that tells in a few lines an experience that is told in more detail in my book Patchwork Faces of the Moon. The image above is one of the few paintings that I have done; it was destroyed in a fire when my cabin in Bastrop County burned down in 2001. This painting and poem can also be found on my website "Through My Window," although the poem here has been revised. I will get around to changing it on that site eventually.
Sleeping in Chinese Boxes
Darkness covers my eyes
A soft quilt covers my thighs
Sleep uncovers lucid dreams
Where nothing is quite what it seems
A kiss turns into a shout
The sound I feel sharp as pain
Moods alter ... Colors washout
Things change faces ... I can't explain
A place I know ... but not true
Somewhere I've been ... somehow new
I shrink, fly, sink, and then grow
In and out of the rabbit hole
I wake in a foggy maze
Tell my dream while still dreaming
Many times I wake up ... dazed ...
Explain this Chinese boxes theme
Growing longer each time told
New verse added to the old
I rant like a lunatic
About dream-ripples concentric
I lose solid thought and freak
Falling through scene after scene
Lost in the mirrors of sleep
My life chases shadows of dream
-VCW
