Lands Behind Closed Eyelids Poem by Christopher R. Kennedy

When I submit to night

I wake up in lands so foreign and so strange
I hardly know myself
It might be a desert
With white sand made from powdered moon
And sometimes it’s a golden neighborhood
With sunset clouds colored by crayons
And nobody stares out of the gray house windows
But the shadows hide secrets

In a sea of cold, black nothingness
Glows a knowing amber streetlight
It stoops with eerie confidence
But there’s no dark road to ignite with
Its blossoming, yellow fire
Sometimes I’m walking a twisting
Dark and empty hallway
And lingering in the distant light
There always seem to be a pair of wild eyes and
A crazy grin that mean my end

Gliding on the cool, sweet wind
On invisible wings that shiver and whimper
Against the empty, silver sky
I soar over mountains and rain forests and
Cities of neon lights with blinking signs
The street names are written in hieroglyphics
And skeletal people walk around in flowing cloaks

In this world where there are no
Laws of physics or ends to the horizon
Where life is a film corroded by an overdose
Of the imagination
Dreams are monstrous beings with no limitations
Anything is possible—birth and death
Everything in between and beyond

But in dreams my eyes are open
Just as they are in this so-called reality
Waking up in a cold sweat or
Jerking awake after missing a step are no
Indicator that this life is realer than the next
And what is real?