Lucid Dreams

Trapped. But running still!
In the dark. (Breath rasping in my throat!)
Rows upon rows upon rows of shopfronts, shuttered.
Pools of blood! On the ground, in the gutters;
Have I, then? (I must have!)
Really...?! (All this blood... was it me !?)
The fear -
It's real. Feral. Visceral.
(With trace elements of rage.)
This, then, is it.
But somewhere, in the trap,
A finger snaps. And I know,
In my dreams, I'm always lucid.

In my dreams, I see my face. Innocent; asleep.
Nameless place; unknown scents;
(ambergris? Or skatole?)
What matters if it's sick whale,
Or civet cat?
(Heavy base, dark heart notes?)
Muskrat, or human gut? Yet,
In my dreams, I'm always lucid.

Slipping to and from rooms
Within rooms within rooms,
Passages crisscrossing between times,
bring me back over and over, to
That steel door hidden away on one side
(never know which side!) of the
Topless iron tower, (right? No, left...
maybe I should dance widdershins around it!)
and a missing key. Trapped
in a puzzle box from hell,
I never scream. I may be lying
At the bottom of a well. Yet,
In my dreams, I'm always lucid.

A labyrinth? A maze? Does it matter,
from where I came?
Is it not all a game?
Bobbing up and down upon the crests and troughs
Of sleep, as I weave my way
through packed rooms, crumbling hallways, do I dare
To stare at faces upon faces upon faces,
Peeling off infinitely like
Masks of particulate madnesses? Yet,
In my dreams, I'm always lucid.