Rope Bridge

Image by Stuart Yaeter

Rope Bridge

My dreams must be glimpses of my parallel lives
in overlapping dimensions, all inhabiting the same
space in different times, bent, folded, worm holes
from galaxies beyond, thoroughfares for my
slumbering consciousness to reconnect to
other me in rediscovered countries.

I often visit a great city, a seaport, hilly and
bustling, recognizing landmarks, delicatessens,
parks, statues, on one visit, and completely lost
the next, exhausting myself with soliciting information
from empty-faced passers by. I used to search
for this place in the real world, but it only appears
when given access through slumber.

I have a job in a vast factory, expansive and
Kafkaesque, out on the line with a whirring
machine, or running errands in a white Ford
van, or in the office mired in clerical stacks.

I live in several houses, in several neighborhoods,
every street sign, mailbox, and garden familiar.
I usually live alone. I read a lot. I attend movies
in huge ex-vaudeville theaters, on their last legs,
showing three films for three bucks. I go alone.

I have a terrible secret, a cache of money, very
old bills, hundreds of thousands of dollars, in
a floor safe in different domiciles. Where are
my accomplices? Where did the cash come from?

I always wear the blue collar, and all the dream
personas are jagged shards, extensions of me,
icons in mirrors facing mirrors, reflecting
sides of themselves beyond sight, becoming
microcosms of compressed existence,
sub-atomic faces on random neutrons,
passionate peanuts pelting every corner
of nameless football fields, strung together
like vibrating Olympic rings, huge towers of
invisible helix, a powerful pride of panicked
scenarios, all begging for me to drop into tonight.

Glenn Buttkus October 2010

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