what is a dream; what is reality?

what is death; what’s on the other side?

it’s perhaps our vulnerability

our most distressing convictions

our most dreadful nightmares…

 

what if you die tonight?

 

how do we differentiate between

what is considered to be reality

and what is deemed to be a dream?

in what we assume to be the reality

is the actuality effectively a dream

or is our perception of the dream

in truth the reality?

is it tangible

or is it merely a fabricated illusion?

and if it is the latter

then who or what has engineered that illusion?

does a chimera occur

and if so is it reversible?

is it a transmogrification

a transmutation

a metamorphosis

of what is popularly conceived to be actuality?

and do you think that Dali

attempted to capture it in his art?

Fuseli certainly did

 

how do we make a distinction

between sleep and consciousness?

when we are asleep

are we unconsciously conscious

or consciously unconscious?

when we are awake

how conscious are we?

is it OUR consciousness

or is it just a subdivision of someone else’s?

 

is there a dimension unknown to us

that would explain it all?

and what if we could perhaps

somehow formulate a system

that could ship us to that nameless dimension...

i can clearly envisage contemplating

‘how stupid –

why haven’t we ever comprehended

the simple legitimacy of the enigma before?

it’s there – staring us right in the face!’

is that the face of truth -

the faithful greeter?

or is it just the grim reaper?

surely it would be unpretentious

palpable

tolerable

alleviated

yet austere …

or would it be ambiguous?

would it be so ambiguous

as to initiate an unforeseen shock? ‘

…the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,

 ‘tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, to die

– to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream. Aye...’

Aye!

that’s the bloody problem!

someone remind me never to read Hamlet again!

 

in the accepted assumption

that is perceived to be reality

might we actually be merely characters

in someone else’s dream?

or are we simply some source of warped amusement

for that profound Being that remains undetectable

but is merely a dimension away?

and is that Being perhaps so

far

far

far superior

that we are barely amoebas in comparison?

is it just part of an experiment?

when we’re sleeping

is that when the regulators check on us

to see if the experiment’s working?

or do they just wager bets

on what happens next?

will they bill us for that?

is that what it’s all about –

we get billed at the end?

what if we can’t pay – what happens then?

 

so

are sleep and death

exactly what we assume them to be?

i think not.

the world was once flat once

until Old Christopher C discovered

that you don’t fall off the edge!

but what if you CAN fall off the edge?

what if you can fall off the edge of your dream?

Is that because you’re dead or is that where life really begins?

‘When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

must give us pause, there’s the respect

that makes calamity of so long life…’  

heck!

someone stop me – I’m quoting Hamlet again!

 

(who was that devil or devil’s advocate

in Worsley Hall

who emerged from the manhole in 1962

and invited me in?

disturbed and traumatised

i had reservations...

but was able to decline the enticement

{i hadn’t heard of Robert Johnson’s crossroads at the time}

but my friends Eric and Mick didn’t have any reservations

He had already made reservations for them

and they gladly joined Him down that hole

sinking to the same depths as Him

and i refused Him again in 1965

when He appeared at Marsh Green

and stood at the top of the stairs

invisible with just a white gloved hand...

beckoning...

and again in 1979 in the living room

early morning

menacing in His Roman uniform and horns...)

 

i could be dreaming now

but I’m never quite sure

have you ever fallen off the edge of your dream

and woken with a start?

what if you don’t wake – how far will you fall?

will someone catch you?

you didn’t pay your bill!

perhaps that’s it –

you don’t pay and they don’t catch you!

 

falling, falling…it isn’t supposed to feel like this;

it’s claustrophobic – i’ve felt it before.

at Closebrook in 1959

in that empty soon to be culverted narrow piped tunnel

why is it so dark?

I don’t want to continue but it’s impossible to go back

Mick is in front and Eric is behind blocking my retreat.

i can’t breathe and i can’t bear the confinement

my friends have shook cloven hooves with Him

and i’m trapped...

 

I remember that John Prine once said

‘I’m too young to be where I’m going

but I’m too old to go back again!’

hold on though –

there’s a pinprick of light at the end of the culvert

like a camera obscura –

but the image is projecting onto that tiny part

of whatever remains of my brain…

i don’t want it there – make it go away!

for just once in my life I’m anxious for the other side...

 

i’m out now and the other side unfolds…

vast green oceans of flowery mead

culminating in snow capped pinnacles

of cold granite

steely faced like the ice maiden

and beyond

a desert fused into a glassy plateau

like Zelazny’s Damnation Ally

 

here the horses struggle to remain upright

yet are still able to elude the human

whose struggle is even greater.

‘my kingdom for a horse’ …

what if the horse is Mr Ed?

will it be butchered?

that’s what the French do!

or is it just Butchered English?

what language are we speaking now –

French English or American English?

perhaps it’s Arabic English.

no matter which

it’s verbal genocide...

but didn’t William Burroughs once say

language is just a virus from outer space?

depends on which strain

of the virus you’re infected with...

and the music’s so loud –

who was it who said

‘if the music’s loud enough

we won’t hear the world falling apart’?

better turn up the volume!

 

is it a dream?

what if it’s the other side?

the dark side!

into the unknown

into the abyss

into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred….

 

i can sometimes smell the brimstone and treacle

usually in the cellar at Swinley –

but sometimes in my dreams

what if this is the last dream

the last post

the final sleep

‘for in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?’

you can only know if you trust me.

i’ve been to Hell –

well close

so close that i could almost feel the heat of the inferno

i could smell the burning flesh –

correction

i could taste the burning flesh

and the Gods laughed from the bowels of the red slag

that fabricated spoil heap

between Marsh Green and Pemberton in 1964

unconvincingly pretending to be Uluru...

they laughed out loud and pretended to be my dad

what kind of joke is that?

what kind of twisted humour?

 

what if you follow me now to the other side?

be brave

you may possibly realise

that your former paradigms

were in comparison to this ‘Brave New World’

a tiny locked cell

Lonely Planet? – Lonely Universe!!!

but only a Druid could reveal to you the Universe,

could show you the other side

no… hang about though

Native Americans – the Shaman

a bit of Datura in the old peace pipe…

it sometimes works

 

just a glimpse for you –

just a tiny microcosmic insight

into the unknown

the unexplained

the inexplicable

that underworld or overworld

that parallel or twin world

of Platt Bridge and Timbuktu

or Standish and Kairouan

or anywhere in the unverse

 

when is your number up?

is it the number of the beast?

not quite – mine is 669

near though don’t you think?

worryingly close

i’m not a Satanist

maybe a Stalinist!

what if all the ‘what ifs’ in your life

are waiting for you on the other side!

what if all the ‘what ifs’

are purely based on where you lived

loved

fought

thought

schemed

dreamed

killed

cringed

feared

or were revered

in Scholes or Pemberton

Aspull or Springfield

or...

Lisbon or Toronto

Tangier or Mombasa

is that good or bad?

depends on who you are –

what you’ve done...

 

when the mortar that cements your brain

starts to crumble

that’s when the compartments work loose

and struggle to communicate with each other

the crumbling mortar

a crumbling Ephesus

a redundant Coliseum

looted once again

plundered for yet another ‘grand design’

 – grand idea – grand illusion

the prostitution of classicism

The walls of Jericho rebuilt around Wigan –

one million miles high

where soldiers of Xerses patrol the parapets

feebly seeking Greek insurgents

through their flawed ‘Hubble telescopes’

while curious Wigan youths and ancient veterans

nostalgically and collectively endeavour

to rediscover the Commercial  Yard and Moot Hall

in our newly protected walled town

 

meanwhile Pythagoras fruitlessly

attempts to construct pyramids

as Einstein finds a reverse theory –

big mistake once again

and Hiroshima implodes

resulting in

all the people who should have been born

suddenly materialise…overpopulation!!!!!

 

Socrates and Plato fool around with a chessboard

where resident knights are local Government pawns

and the paparazzi rooks

fight for fragments of your lost memories

to sell on Ebay or to any illicit entrepreneur

while Confucius sits in lengthy contemplation

occasionally laughing at Ishmael and Queequeg

as they swim with whales

in the Leeds Liverpool Canal                                                  

and Jonah teasing...

in the confusion Neptune is left stranded

as the drunken Bacchus quenches his great thirst

the ‘Cut’ vanishes in one swift gulp

to expose a vast linear sunken Desierto de Tabernas

a thousand and one Andalucian Nights

flamenco spectres dance around Taurus

who narrates allegories

to the ghosts of those laid slain

at the Plaza de Toros………

 

Hasta luego mi amigos! Sleep tight now…