Rhythms from people’s words
float through my drifting thought,
cadences of voices
with all the meaning
transmuted into something
that will be dreams later,
after I give up
my hold on the day
Night wants to claim me,
my eyes feel
this is a good idea.
I’m holding out for inspiration
but maybe it’s here.
©Wendy Mulhern
April 18, 2017
Am I, even still, in deep dream?
Or am I slowly waking?
is it possible all this could be
just what it seems,
or are we long mistaken?
My fumbling hands try to determine
what is freedom here, and what is chains.
I find I’m bound by what I thought was comfort,
I find I’m freed by my internal reins
And what may seem a heaving shift of landscape
may be the rift of an illusive scene,
and what may seem a fearful theft of power
may lift us up to finer, lucid being —
to grasp and taste the source of true delight:
illumining the universe with light.
©Wendy Mulhern
February 8, 2017
Beyond the whole charade of shame and fear
and the confusing counsel to atone,
the place of being where your name is clear
awaits the understanding that will bring you home
Above the clamor of the inner voices
that trace the stories, tally all the fault,
you’ve always sensed there might be other choices —
within the clutter, something to exalt
And so it’s only partially surprising
to find no need to settle all the scores,
not even need to stage a great uprising
to overthrow what held you down before.
Your remedy is simple but extreme —
you wake to find the whole thing was a dream.
©Wendy Mulhern
November 21, 2016
Because we are dearly loved,
we haven’t been left
to wander through this dream alone.
The guiding signs have been written
in the pattern of ferns,
in the movement of clouds
They have been placed
in the throats of birds,
irresistible for them to sing,
They have been given to us in scents
and in the breath of winds
And set down, too, in words
which, though in dream state
we may think of as commandments,
are ways for us to fathom
what we are,
these truths that, when we keep them,
anchor everything,
and with their clearing focus
wake us up.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 28, 2016
My heart comes back from its night of dreams
eager to tell its stories,
rendered quiet by lack of words
as all the memory has faded
My heart, resilient and decorous,
as it has been throughout the night,
waits beneath my morning musings and remembrances.
It might have something to say
when the time is right
Though when I come around to asking,
it is reticent, for I have made my mental scene
too busy to receive its message
Ah, heart — here’s some stillness for you —
beneath the beep of backing trucks
and the squawk of crows,
and the louder blaring of my random thoughts,
a pause, a prayer, a listen —
There. Your turn.
©Wendy Mulhern
September 14, 2016
It’s just a story.
It’s just a story,
and these deep heavings
of vicarious grief
need not possess me
any longer than I choose
It’s a story, and its aftermath
was just a dream, just a dream
accompanied by torments
of the almost sleeper by my side
It all got slept away,
it all got side-stepped
in my midnight insistence
on immunity
So why, in the shadow
of this overcast afternoon,
do I feel the mounting, behind my eyes,
of what would be tears
if they felt sure they had a cause?
Every story must need
to be heard, be felt,
sweep up a community to circle it,
to deliver it down
to where all is resolved
in the peace-deep ever stirring sea.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 21, 2016
What treasures can you hold in your hands
as the dream dissolves
(the dream of your hands,
along with what they hold)
Where is the place you can put
something you have loved so deeply?
What can you bring
into the next place?
What holds your treasure
is more substantial than hands,
more lasting than memory,
more true than time
You’ll find it,
though it may be dispersed,
(so many light points to the reflections
in moving water)
It may take a while
to find its name again,
but its love will leap back to you,
jump into your arms
like it never left.
©Wendy Mulhern
March 28, 2016
In my dream we were walking
to the city — hundreds of thousands
of us, freeways full of us.
There were clouds of black smoke, too,
and sirens,
and trying to get across roadway barriers
And we were all helping each other,
moving with urgency,
moving to stand up for some imperative
(I don’t know if I knew what)
In my dream we were fearless,
for our unity was awesome.
May we be so as well
in days to come.
©Wendy Mulhern
December 13, 2015
A bland eraser
comes to wipe out
random moments
of my consciousness
It doesn’t leave a blank, though —
underneath awakeness,
images present themselves,
colorful and almost plausible,
shrinking quickly as my conscious thought returns
So some intentions go unfilled,
some straight lines
fade out before they designate
appropriate direction
But there is a circle,
a full, embracing circle
that goes all the way around
this sense of what I am,
and keeps me whole.
©Wendy Mulhern
July 1, 2015
Overlapping images of dreams
shimmer like rippling scales
in the backdrop of my mind.
Some have words and laughter,
some shift into each other
bringing up absurdities
It’s easy enough
to stay here entertained
and not get up
though duties nudge dully
at the borders of my thoughts
Each of these images
could tell a whole story,
lead me on a whole journey
if I just let myself
(for just a little longer)
slip under.
©Wendy Mulhern
May 11, 2015