Click images for desktop size: "Awakening" by Walter Girotto My nights have been filled with nightmares. Death and destruction dreams. Omens of things ending.
It might be the ill health of the cat. That is wearing. The cats still alive. I don't know for how much longer. She moves on shaky legs but purrs when you pay attention to her.
The end I keep feeling down my spine isn't that calm. Its a wild end caused by bombs and governments.
It's a dream but filled with Latin brass and vivid syncopated percussion. Not dreams of others deaths. Not dreams of guilt but dreams of innocence.
Death crouches like a dog waiting for scraps.
I'm walking. It could have been for hours or more. It could have been longer or no more than a few minutes. I feel the heaviness in my legs and the fatigue in my hips. I can't tell. My brain is as numb as my fingers, toes and the ice cube on my face that used to be my nose. I remember that Dante postulated that the Final Circle of Hell was not fire but ice. He believed that the only way out of Hell was inwards.
I keep seeing faces in my mind. So clear the faces blot out the landscape. (Death crouches in the corner, stinking like a beggar.)
I try and blot it out and concentrate on my steps, keeping one foot moving always one foot in front of the other.
My eyebrows are frozen into sparkling spikes. They give off brilliant flashes whenever I blink. Its a nice diversion. One foot in front of the other.
I think that my steps are growing shorter. I can't tell for certain. My legs have long been numbed by the cold.
I stop rubbing my hands together, trying to get some feeling into them. (death crouched.)
And my eyelashes! They must weigh a ton. So hard to raise them more than a slot . . . A slit, a slot, a happy thought . . . My brain was dancing. My puppy was off dancing to the tune in bright green pastures. She's begging me to come dance with her.
There are others calling out to me too. I hear voices and barks. They all want me to come with them into the warm and to dance and not be bothered by the weight of my body any longer.
My voice is shaky, thin. It barely sounds like my voice at all. The only song I can think of is "Beautiful Dreamer." "Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me . . . "
It feels hard to stay awake. I was in the middle of nowhere. I can feel unmarked paupers grave vibrating underneath my feet. I feel the vibrations shake my body through the dirt and through the snow and ice I feel them. "beautiful dreamer, wake unto me."
I have to stay awake. I was in the middle of nowhere and (something) sat crouched and waiting. I thought it wouldn't touch me. I was the Beautiful Dreamer. "Weave a circle 'round him thrice, and touch his eyes . . ."
My eyes kept sealing shut. The icicle eyelashes, the swelling frostbite on the eyelids, the terrible aching desire for sleep makes me close them. It doesn't matter. I'm still on my feet. One foot in front of the other. I'll just rest my eyes (touch his eyes with holy dread) for a moment and keep on walking, the important thing is to keep on walking. Go ahead. I'm not going to meet anyone along this road. "Beautiful Dreamer."

Click images for desktop size: "Arabian Girl" by LeRevant I hear someone shouting; "For he on honeydew has fed." A voice from the night, a voice that was a rasp that the wind caught and smashed almost before the words reached my ears. Then I realized it was my voice. That made me laugh. Keep walking. You're not going to meet anybody.
But I did.
With an effort I forced my frozen eyes open and saw that I had wandered into a copse of tree. The trees all looked like naked men and women, naked people who were all running from the icy wind. The copse was on the edge of a deep pine forest. Where was the road? I was hip deep in snow, leaning against the trunk of a sturdy blue spruce. For some reason the tree reminded me of my mother. And there I saw him. Him. In the same cluster of trees. Crouching. Waiting.
I tried to talk. It was only a low whisper. It hurt my lungs to talk. "you've been looking for me all along, haven't you?"
I sat down in the snow. It felt so good. Eyes so tired (touch his eyes with holy dread). And as Death wove his circle around me, I felt the frozen lines in my face crack into a smile. I don't know if my lips moved but I wanted recite the last lines of the poem "For he on honeydew has fed . . . " Its going to be all right now. Death wouldn't stay too long with me. It had another appointment.
"And drunk the milk of Paradise," was all I could whisper.
You're supposed to wake up when you die in a dream but I couldn't close my eyes, so the snow swirled in and filled in the open slots while it blanket me in brilliant white.
And then Death went on up the road.