CHANT OF THE WAKING DREAMERS

 by   shaun   lawton   

   Get it down help it across step it up move like water  

Fork it over hand it under never let your dreams be torn down

Stand up to it look right at it in the eye state it over and over

  I won't back down again and again no I won't back down 

My friend my son my brother my sister my father my mother 

My wife my neighbor my coworker my boss my fellow strangers

 No one will ever get out alive every one must face the reaper alone

We're all in it a part of the whole each individual cell in a colony 

 With our role to play along in this building symphony of song 

 A chorus rising and falling through outer space while ebbing and flowing

Along without a trace of evidence left in its wake except for the twinkling

stars strewn forward and back in a grand celestial swarming of birth

and death echoing back in lengthening radio waves of fading reception 

  while we gaze in a direction we mistake as outward oblivious 

 to our place in the expanding branes of creation to be recycled 

  into the permanent installation we might think of as the artifice

of articulation the ultimate portrait reflection shading the emerging

contour of a face beyond the scope of our capacity to receive  

  with the singular exception of a second guessed fate like 

the wavering image cast back from the surface of a rippling lake 

  that catches our attention to arrest us in place on a split mind 

trip of objectification magnifying our individual egos out of proportion

  from the whole until we confuse ourselves with the dream of god 

  in constant tides of awakening even while legion fall back into sleep 

  to be continued in the next verse while the worst is on its way 

 this remains the chant of the waking dreamers we will never back down

or go away because no matter how those who may oppose us try their own blindness will lead them astray because only the true know the way

through the darkness with our eyes shut to step into the den of beasts

  bare handed with our raw and bloody hearts still pumping on our sleeves with courage in the face of danger we surmount every challenge 

  that comes our way with our feet firmly grounded on the current of time and our heads held high with a black hole halo around each one of us we skid and slide and stumble only to tumble onward with trust 

     each one of us a living ghost whose fading image remains 

  as an impression framed in liminal light as the shroud of a memory 

       only polishes brighter like the jewel of an eye that will never rot 

flesh + blood = technology

by  shaun lawton 

  gotta clip the CapCut connection 

from the PartiCular ParentCorp 

 less you want to sacrifice protection 

   shoulda worn a Willy hat  

 when it came to that  we're all

 so called socially transmitted

 put yourself at ease if you please

  and if you can't then hop on a box and rant 

 to amplify one's shout in private print has clout 

 interconnectivity on the TV laid the template

  paved from the line lain down by the Bell 

 the human race grew tentacles under the sea 

stretching out across the gulfs the first grotesquerie

  of cables entwined as sinews of the singularity 

what luddites tend to forget flesh + blood = technology

 

REPORTING LIMIT

by shaun lawton

The servant arrived 

  pedaling his bicycle.

 He was not standing 

on the pedals.

He was not sitting on 

  the velocipede seat.

 In fact there was no 

bicycle, which was alarming.

It turns out he wasn't even 

  an operator here

No Damage done. 

 We are just making 

you aware.

  There is someone working 

for you not employed by you
  who does not arrive to work 

 on a missing bicycle.

Infirmary ward transporter 

  returned our patient to 

 the wrong room
  without having done so. 

 Convalescent was found 

in his bed asleep
  with the rail down 

and his cell phone 

 unplugged from the wall.

This victim was not on oxygen 

  yet and was wearing 

a nasal canula
 No harm done. 

Hospice envoy failed 

 to be polite and smelled 

faintly of Old Spice.

 The courier rang our unit's buzzer 

without touching the button 

  Staff alarmed and confused. 

He was also naked while being 

  fully clothed. There were no wrinkles 

 in his clean work shirt. He shouted 

at us without making a sound. 

He used inappropriate body 

  language without moving. 

We noticed his shirt 

  was tucked in too perfectly

No harm done.

Patient emissary did not arrive 

  with subject because there was no
 cause for a transport at the time. 

We checked the sufferer's room
 and confirmed they were not there. 

   The bed was empty and the side rail 

  was down. We called X-ray and the case 

 was still getting their exam. 

The carrier was actually sitting down 

 doing nothing during the exam. 

  No harm done and the courier 

returned patient to their room 

 after the exam was over.

INDIVISIBLE

 by shaun lawton

 We stand, wondering 

how to justify it all 

 Stop. Breathe. Fall 

Don't you know how

  the world's entangled? 

   It's  undividable 

inalienable a totality 

whose parts mirror 

death to life, we grow

  Interwoven, apart. 

We're justified across 

  this great divide 

 we think we see be-

'tween us, and beyond

  the unbearable lightness

of being here together 

   now when we appear 

 so far and distant to be

  torn apart by inequity 

 we fall through one slit

  to drown in a mirrorball 

    crafted and planted for

   a siamese dream split 

   down the seam as one;

  a harlequin calamity.