Coronation Poem by Jeff Hobbs

“In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truthlike and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system.” Dostoyevski

I had a dream
My overwrought and deranged
Mind dreamt you cared.
The details are delicate:
We were friends.
There was a sense of hope
Of joy in all that we did.
I learnt the meaning of words
Cherish value trust share peace
But they have become monstrous images
Battered and bruised like a young child
In the care of a demented sadist.
Each moment I feel the bruises
And see the cuts form
As the whip flails down on the dying nag.
If only they were physical
Instead of enduring injuries to the soul.
I stare at a gallery of pain
And mourn my loss:
Innocence beaten into the ground
Beckoned by death.
It has even killed faith….

(14 June 2006)