When We Dream

Poems by Chuck Cliff

Strange Dream
When We Dream
Deep, Deep Wishes
Fearing the Night
A Dream
Good Night Ole
A Sonnet of Insomnia
The Slimy Creep of Paranoia
Hear the Night Winds
The Monster in the Flowers
A Knock on the Door
Strange Silence - Silent Greening
Most Awesome Times
Nightmare
Strange Dream
I dreamt about a monster. The monster was
An evil doll, which had the power to make
people do horrible things to themselves.
& I could hear their screams as it coerced
them to put themselves into meat grinders
and onto red-hot stove plates...
My heart was full of fear as I attacked
that monster with a long, double-edged
saw with teeth like sharp scimitars...
But the Monster was covered with kevlar cloth
& the scimitar teeth would not bite
& that bad doll grinned as only a doll can!
Suddenly I cut through the cloth and its insides spilt out
-- a mass of snaky ropes were reaching out for me
-- but I set them on fire!
Drinking my morning cofee, I took a book
from the shelf and fell upon this quote
from St. Theresas The Interior Castle:
I cried to myself:
After all these years! Is it now I first begin?
& I answered myself: Be consoled, my soul!
If you are not constantly at the beginning of your journey,
you will never reach the goal!
Be attentive as you walk the sacred path of life
& cry to Wakan Tanka constantly
_________________________________________________________________________
Theresa is speaking here of the First Mansion: [at the beginning of the pilgrimage] The soul
is still absorbed in worldly affairs...there are so many bad things -- snakes and vipers and
poisonous creatures...These wild beasts and animals force him to close his eyes to everything
but themselves unknown quote
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When We Dream 20-12-99
Ive heard it said that, when we dream, the people and things we meet
Are, actually, aspects of our personality.
If that is true-or-not, is not as important as
The consequence of its being-true -- do you understand?
The raging bull that rams its snout against the window pane;
The man who hammers his fist against the window of my car:
They are but memories now -- but which was real and which the dream?
I thought they both were real, but one of them was just a dream!
The woman I kiss -- the touch and taste of her lips are still in my mouth!
The woman I grasp in sweet embrace in the night -- where is she now?
Shall I say: the one was real; the other just a sucubus?
Its not a simple matter, I hope you truly understand!
The woman I would have called my mother, who died so long ago;
The baby boy who wonders if, somehow, it was his fault
She went away; and the Drummer Boy who fades behind the glass...:
Where are they now? These memories are all a part of me!
Be not too quick dividing dreams from reality;
For all you do and see is part of what we really are!
Some may ask: Where then, is our responsibility?
If nothing is real, then we can do whatever we desire!
Brave Azlan may answer for me, in his short reply to the Witch:
You have not looked deep enough into the deep magic!
The little things that we decide reveal eternal soul.
The questions God will ask are not so much:
What-you-did
-- but, WHY?
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I would like to make the claim that there isnt all the much difference between
running away from and running after something - these are the two modes in
which most of us live our lives. When it all comes down to dust, everything you
do is connected with your hearts desire and your deepest wish is entwined
with your greatest fear.
Amanda Anderson Cliff
1879 -1943



Eunice Peterson Cliff
1922-1943
This poem was composed because of memories of my mother, Eunice and my
foster mother, Amanda, who both died all too soon when I was three years old.
Deep, Deep Wishes
With every snowflake and every rain drop,
one melting on my cheek,
the other pretending to be a tear,
I wish that you were not so far away,
I wish that you were near...
With every breeze that moves the leaves!
With each bird that opens its beak to sing!
With every flower in the spring!
With every wave breaking upon the sands
of these foreign shores,
I wish that I had been bolder!
I wish that I had drunk deeper
of my mistakes and asked for more!
I wish you could hold me against your breast.
I wish I could hear my mothers breath.
With every snowflake and every rain drop,
one melting on my cheek,
the other pretending to be a tear.
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Fearing the Night... @ 09.10.99
There are things, of which ! am so afraid,
Of which ! barely dare think, let alone say!
There are monsters who would make us all their slaves!
The hidden sorrows, the bitterness and rage,
Coagulate into a clot of snot
and scream of all the things they haven't got...
They groan the world, they tear it all apart
For the sake of nothing but cosmic farts!
! moan for children in their innocence
so quickly forced to experience
the burning sands of the desert and
The inhumanity of man to man...
But still ! say: there will come a better day!
8 these insanity's will be washed away!
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A Dream
Going down these stony steps,
far too high and far too steep
Im so afraid that I might fall...
But there is nothing I can do,
no time to cry no time to weep.
No time for anything at all,
except to answer a dreaming call
to a great cathedral, in the deep
That is all that I recall!
Some other time, some other dream,
perhaps, I shall remember more
than going down those stony steps,
far too high and far too steep...
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Good Night Ole 01-01-2000
Im feeling so decrepit in my bones;
So lost, so lonely, so far away from home!
I feel Im quickly running out of gas
& that the end is coming closer,
so fast!
I feel it in my soul and in my breath:
I feel that every way I turn,
the best
Recedes from me with ever increasing
speed!
I feel whatever I do, my deepest needs
Are being neglected, for what?
A hill of beans!
A pile of beans,
and a handful of brass rings!
Tingle tangle trinkets for a heart of gold!
I remember days of old when knights were bold
And women had a cause to get excited!
Is that Ole I see, coming to say good night.
Id like to get away, but Im trapped
Within a prison of my own design
I built myself, from bits of trash and crap,
Cemented with some spit and a pack of lies.
Perhaps you say, You should mend your ways
The things you do are killing you as sure
As taxes
___________________________________________________________________________
De Lille Ole med Paraplyen: Little Ole with his Umbrella is the Danish Sandman, who helps
children to fall asleep, and hold his umbrella with happy dreams over the bed.
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A Sonnet of Insomnia 1996
There are sonnets of insomnia,
At least they are not just a diarhea
Of the verbal sort -- or some verbose
Form of genital manipulation...
I lie there in the night seeking sleep,
As lines of pentameter slowly creep
Across the internal screen of my mind.
The subjects are both stupid and sublime,
Holy and divine, usually kind,
And infected with a wierdly wry
Form of humor which is a trade mark of mine.
Ah, but falsity is the name of the Age:
Prophecy, birthrights and pottage
Are greedily exchanged for instant garbage.
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The Slimy Creep of Paranoia
I woke suddenly, with a slimy creep
of paranoia, a fear of being watched
by shadow things waiting for me to sleep,
so that I, in my restless dreams, might be taught
to surrender to an ugliness of mind
which trumpets truth, but delivers death;
which preaches peace while making new designs
for ways to rend and tear human flesh
into tiny bits of gristle and shattered bone...
The teacher taught that there is an ultimate sin
which no one and nothing can atone,
neither now nor when final judgment begins...
At the end of days, at the end of time,
the ugly evil will never, ever rhyme!
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Hear the Night Winds
It was then the monsters were born, hideous and blind...
Although blind, they are able to find the living flesh
which they rip and rend and in the end they grind
the bones of human beings to a dust of death...
Bits of gristle dangle from their jagged teeth...
Bloated bellies belch their rancid breath...
Epiphanies of incarnate horror and grief,
their mewing cry is like little kittens left
to drown in burlap bags thrown from shore...
But why was this? Were they some sort of revenge?
Was justice a part of their destruction and gore?
Was nemesis sent, some evil to avenge?
It may be so, but we dare not tell the tale!
We tickled the dragons tail and now we hear
the night winds wail!
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The Monster in the Flowers
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@ 27.05.99
The reason Im so afraid sometimes
is that, when I look into my mind, I find
in the shadow of the flowers I nourish there
a dirty little beast, with fangs bared...
It glares, as if to dare for me to say
that I demand that it should go away!
It snorts, as if it wants to let me know
that it will follow me where ever I go...
That little monster you see, is a part of me,
a part of me and my divinity...
If I should get to know it truely as a friend,
all acrimony and division will end
as it sublimes into a beautiful ape!
O joy! ! am no longer so afraid...

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This sonnet sort of paraphrases C..S. Lewis The Great Divorce - and he probably got the
idea from Jung - the point is that if we do not recognize all of what we are, attempts at
holiness result in feeble monstrisities of what we could be, and all our efforts do little more
than paint bleeding shadows on the world around us.
A Knock on the Door
The nightmare always begins with a knock on the door.
I answer as I always do such calls,
Your reason, and have I seen you here before?
How soon they come inside my castle walls,
with badges brightly flashing open sesame!,
they shove me down and shout these words at me:
The crimes of which you are accused are bad,
so very bad that suspicion proves your guilt!
The words you speak, they make our Master mad,
destroying that on which our freedoms built,
You lie in shame because the words you teach
come from minds of men, and not from God!
You should wash your mouth with soap and rinse with bleach
If you will not live for Love, you must taste Rod
___________
Was Gallelio a hero when
They showed him tools with which theyd tear him limb from limb
And that because he said the Earth
In fact was not the center of the Universe
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Strange Silence -- Silent Greening
A strange silence walks across the street,
Looking for someone to do -- or something to eat.
Imagine yourself, all alone in the night-time air,
With no where to go...in fact -- youre stranded there!
You feel a sudden shadow upon your shoulders,
Before you can turn, you feel the weight of boulders,
Stony rocks and iron scrap -- and bricks!
You wish for sure you were back home in the sticks!
But here in the City, theres no avoiding the cost;
A strange silence is gathering all that was lost
In the cause of premeditated innocence.
Chalk it up to experience!
Two thirds of all that is ugly is loss of meaning.
Meaning eternally sings in silent greening.
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Most Awesome Times 10-10-2002
Its not whats hid in ancient prophecy
As much as what is bid by hypocrisy!
These questions of what is wrong and what is right;
They worry me through long and sleepless nights
They ride me like a mare upon my bed...
I toss, I turn, my sheets are soaked with sweat;
Then, suddenly awake, I suck for life
In choking, sobbing, hulking, cursing breaths...
The perfumed words of those who do Gods-Will
While in the name of God (or State!) do kill;
They fill our angels with ripe disgust and soon
They will puke their guts, and vomit flames of doom...
For those who read the writings on the wall,
These are the Most Awesome Times of all...
These are the most awesome times of all!
The tread of iron boots, the spread of dread,
deep vibrations in the ground, small
changes here and there and then,
instead
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of some cataclysm or rip in time
it slowly creeps upon us like Drought,
or her scrawny, skinny sister, Ms. Famine,
Thats not the sort of thing you fix with a law!
As a matter of fact, its not a single thing,
its more the spirit, the odor, the stink of the times.
We sit here screaming for the birdy to sing
while everything returns to primal slime
and the echo answers: Its the end of rhymes
and everything returns to primal slime!.
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Nightmare
Everything returns to primal slime!
You blink and think to yourself, What does it mean?
It means what you thought when you heard it the first time!
This may be nightmare, but its not a dream!
Its incredible, how slowly it dawns on most
of those who think they know something about
the father, the son and the holy ghost,
but then its always been that those who shout
the loudest are usually those who know the least.
Thats why they tend to turn a shade of pale
when they finally see the beast
putting everything up for sale.
Im afraid its true, my dear, those billboard signs,
and the naked neon we see are signs of the times
We see in naked neon the signs of the times,
that, and in the flash of glowing screens.
Its a sort of ugly beauty if you dont mind
the creeping insanity, the occasional scream
piercing the night or messages read between
the crawling mudlines as talking heads
and teleprompted talking points obscenely
smile and blab about collateral dead
in the latest retroactive violence
in the name of peace or whatever theyll call it today.
Orwells rolling in his grave doing penance
for saying too much when, in fact, he didnt say
enough.
(If you want to know the truth, Im told
it all went down the memory hole...)
It all went down the old memory hole
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along with Alice and the White Rabbit,
whos up on charges now for his, uh, role
in what it was Lewis Carrol didnt
do or maybe did - in any case
theyd all go to jail today.
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