A Dream in May
A dream back in May
Said that I was a guest in a house
And the house was filled with water
Except for walkways, more like catwalks
In my attempt to cross the room,
The house’s animals had teamed up
To thwart me
There was an octopus, a shark, and
A cat, with red energy lines all over it
I called it the Bloodlines Cat.
I walked upon a catwalk, above the water
And looked down
Thinking the shark went to snap at my foot
I smacked it
And looked down to see the octopus.
At some point in my dream,
I came to realize that the Bloodlines Cat was helping me
And then I woke up.
At Fate’s Behest
To what end, the turning tide,
Fate’s pearlescent crystal ball?
To what end does it show me the strangest visions
And then—all at once, nothing at all?
And to what end are all the paths cloaked,
And no one way left clear?
It seems that I can truly choose
The direction in which to steer, so—
Pray for me, if you will—
My path has been a musing,
A tempest-bent, unrelent through storms around me,
Of Hell’s choosing.
And so I go through my wandering life,
Taking some uncertain test,
For though I am the master at the helm,
I yet remain at Fate’s behest.
Hostel on the Coast
I hear a hazy radio playing
Somewhere in the background
The communal areas are empty
Except for a woman in the living room
Who keeps sniffling like she’s got a cold
And the view from the tiny window
In the kitchen, is amazing
Check out time is by 11,
But it’s only 7:54
And I can’t leave the
Bright orange mug
Full of coffee
Before I leave for
Half Moon Bay.
The Dream-Time
The dream-time, reflecting-time,
Talk as we eat our leftover dinner-time,
Laugh and interpret the world in the microwave’s digital readout-time
Do all the things we forgot, time
Update resume’s, pay bills, remind ourselves that we are humans and
That things break down, time
Dog needs water and snake needs a bath and lawn needs mowing
Like I need sleep, time
Reflect on the gains of the day,
The multicolored pieces of lint I found
Somewhere in the rat race maze
The hazy should-I-drink time,
Lie down, blink time,
Imagine the good things of life that waited on this side of adulthood’s gate and
Imagine a lover’s warm embrace-time
Sleep-time, perchance to dream-time
And some time wake and daydream
Of that night-time
Fires of the Brother Jonathan
A wreck on the coast
Can’t contain all the ghosts
And the gold of the ship that spilled over—
Dashed on the rocks, a thousand shocks
Bring the bonfires higher and closer
The unquiet dead will not rest ‘til they’ve spanned
All the ghost-fires flaring the sand line
To warn living sailors about the all the rocks
Down below that dark, dread coast line
The dead cannot rest
Until they have warmed and blessed
That space that the vessel crashed over—
Dashed on the rocks, a thousand shocks
Bring the bonfires higher and closer.
***
“At Fate’s Behest” is an excerpt from Leslie D. Soule’s new poetry chapbook, My Mentor, Death. You can purchase the book from Terror House Press here.
Leslie D. Soule is a fantasy and sci-fi author from Sacramento, California. She has an M.A. in English and is currently working on the final book of her fantasy series, The Fallenwood Chronicles. Leslie is also the author of My Mentor, Death and Falling Through the World, available from Terror House Press.
