What Dreams May Come Poem by MacGregor Tagliaferro

This quiet place, where dreams this way come
On the mesa they lie, mute against time
Impartial clouds pattern the valley floor
That view and sky forever going on
When wayward thoughts demand, how rewarding
This long vista of calm lucidity

What grace of light, what pure words go to form
The manifest destiny of rhythm
What tranquil peace can be drawn from this source
When the sun rises on the horizon,
The air is sparkling; dream is certainty
Pure reverie of an eternal cause

Sure treasure, simple shrine to forever,
Palpable calm, visceral reticence,
Proud-lidded eye, wonder wherein there wells
under desolation, such depth of sleep
Silence, mirrors in my soul, reflected
and cold, proof of myriad untold truths

Temple of time, in a brief sigh bounded,
to this rare height, flawed though I, and girted
by the horizons of a grief filled eye
And, like her proposed supreme offering,
that coruscation ultimately breeds
a callous indifference in the sky

Even as the dread meaning is absorbed,
Even as within the mouth, words dying,
changing into doubt through dissolution,
So to my desultory soul declared
All breath transfigured into breathless air,
And breathe soon a final emanation

Beautiful dream, true dream, could I have changed
After such arrogance, after so much
idleness; strange, yet full of potency
Open to these silent searing spaces
Over sepulchral homes, shadow passes,
Soul laid bare to a midnight damnation

Apparition appears; spirit subdues
An impartial light admired and yet feared,
whose attraction is merciless, and yearns
to pull back, to the original place
Look at the light; but to look does imply
no less a somber moiety of shade

For myself, deep down within, wondering
at the quick, the poem's holy fount, between
the void and this pure power, I beseech
the intimations of a secret proof
Sensual, dark, and eternal reserve
Depths deceptively beyond mortal reach

But know you, protector of the beyond,
gulf which casts up her forbidden passion,
secret which dazzles so, through eyes wide shut
What body drags to its lingering end
What mind draws it to this bone-covered ground
A star broods there on all that I have lost

Closed, hallowed, full of insubstantial fire
Morsel of truth to hope given over
This poem, ruled by its flambeaux, pleases so
A place all cold, stone, and dark wood, shudders
so much, surrounded, so many shadows:
The tombs, asleep, on the faithful prairie

Keep away those who were not forgiven
A solitary with the cowboy's smile
Roundup and pasture long the mysteries,
The snow-white herd of the long undisturbed
Drive far away from here the righteous ones,
the vain daydreams, those with questioning eyes

Now understood; never is a long time
The brittle words founder on the dry wind
All burnt up, used up, drawn up in the air
to some ineffably altered answer
Life enlarged, drunk with annihilation
And bitterness is sweet, the spirit clear

They lie easy, hidden away, silent
All their mysteries released on the wind
Motionless hour, thoughts aloft in the blue
Brood on and on; a self-deluded theme
For all that was done, must accept as is
Unbounded words and perfect description

I am what's changing secretly in you
I am the only outlet for your fears
Penitence, doubts, debauched desires
These are the flaws within divided pride
But in the heavy night, ensconced in stone
Uncover the truth behind her shadow

Slowly come over to the other side
To a cold impervious what may come
For the truth has swallowed the deception
Into evermore the gift of life, passed
The personal grace, the soul now preserved
Dust and wind now swirling where tears once fell

Sharp, ardent cries of those whom love once teased
The eyes, furtive glances, moistly closing
The pretty touch that gambles with the flame
The crimson blood shining; willing lips yield
The last gift, and the flesh trembling and hot
All gone to hereafter, back whence it came

Great soul, does hope yet lie waiting somewhere
To find some dream without the lying eyes
That wave on wave offers to stir desire
Sighing still when but in a thin cold air
But all perishes; things of flesh and bone
As is, divine impatience also dies

Lurking immortality, alluring
Laurelled consoler scary to behold,
Death is a womb, a mother's breast, she feigns
The fine illusion, damn the pious trick
Who does not know, and who is not made ill
That empty skull, that everlasting grin

Way deep down there, derelict, despondent
Whom such a weight of regret overspreads
Who directs so, in whose steps all is lost
Real soul devourer, unanswerable
Not for all that sleep under the torment
Life is his meat, and flesh is still his host

'Love, ' shall it be said? or, 'Hatred of self'
Her secret truth so intimate with me
That any name would suit her well enough
Enough that she can see, will, entice, touch
My flesh delights her, under her caress
Living but as a morsel of her life

Warrior poet, cruel philosopher
Pierces then with arrow after arrow
that hum, reverberate, too late to flee
The pure pain giving life, the arrow thrills
Only the sun; shadows to overcome
Soul, giant strides left standing and waiting

Now, the future futility unfolds
Shattered memories, meditation's mold
To drink in the wind's reviving, or not
A freshness, exhalation of the plains,
Restores souls with life-breathing potency
To run at the wind, hurled back to living

Mighty wind with such wild frenzies gifted
Her hair, sifted, shines in the mountain sun
All over, images, her skin glistens,
Creature supreme, drunk on her ardent flesh
In a tumult like the deepest passion
Bite at her quivering curvaceous curves

The wind is rising; consummation looms
A huge sigh overwhelms, pleasure consumes
Words explode out with a surging exhale
So, here among the silent departed,
the final step taken in this journey
Here in this quiet place, what dreams may come

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