I awoke with a stack
of bricks on my chest
bloody and dull red blocks
forming a hard slimey
semiconscious ark
and it was death to touch
as seen in Exodus
after the flood in Genesis
where two of every species
wooden stallions
stone night mares
weighed on my horse sense
and sanity and eye
screamed sanctify me
but I was already a saint
as well as a sitcom
a sixties love song
steeped in dung
steeple chased
because some animal
church wants to make me
foxtrot in tempo
with the braying
boy Pinnochio
wants to make me
hog its slops like
Pigpen McSomething
grateful and dead
wants to make me change
the litter in its offering box
as I swill from and fill it
like chairman meow
dogsick beyond the ability
of any dramamine
or drama there
to keep me from falling
into the who of you better
you bet I stuck cotton
up my nose while thinking
this whole dream
has to be real because
it smells funkier
than red white and blue
shorts on James Brown
in a cold sweat
in a rocky screenplay
set to feature Sylvester Stone
singing Family Affair
and I awoke with a stack
of four children
on my chest and
four adults had us covered
nearly smothered
trying to put us out
and back to sleep
perchance to scream
sometimes I screech
like a mystical magpie
only to awaken again
in muffled madness
recalling funerals
follow many wakes
and this is why I always try
to sleep on top of the blankets
and need not set the alarm clock.

— John Burroughs, 9/10/2010