strange dream last night

maybe it had to do
with things i thought before i went to sleep
i watched a show
where sharon stone
was an attorney who talked to god
she seemed to be an excellent attorney
but everyone thought she was insane
it made me itch, sort of
thinking about the tour bus
as it swung through arlington
and i couldn't say i heard, maybe
but i definitely felt
confusion
fear
hysteria
death
just like it was all around me
and it freaked me out
and the guy i was with said:
look, i know you didn't want to come here
but you don't need to throw a fit in front of my family
i was trying not to let them see
but, to him
i was acting
making it up

so anyway
i guess
before bed i was thinking about
talking to spirits or whatever
and how it's not a really useful skill
or, maybe, that i'm not good enough at it
for it to be anything other than disturbing
only psychic enough to make vague statements
only recognizable after the fact
i even looked up schizophrenia yet again
even though, i know i'm not
and i shouldn't go there
right before i set my subconscious free
it's just bad planning
plus i'm listening to an old harry desden novel
so i could have expected ghostly dreams
which is sort of what i got
but not exactly


my memory is smeared
i can't remember most of it
and i almost didn't write this at all
because what i can remember is so fleeting
but it's still intensely with me
after a whole day
so here goes

i remember i was driving
i was taking them with me
there was a woman in the seat beside me
she was a ghost
the strange thing is
i'm not sure who she was
i don't think she was one person
i think she was an essence
of composite bits
she was very thin, though, very thin
and then my cat jumped in
jumped in the front seat and snuggled in next to me
and i immediately felt happy with her there
i didn't know i could get visits from dead cats
it's only been people before, i think
and i started to drive off
i didn't have to go to the hospital
at first i thought i did
so i was just driving off
when the ghost says:
you have to go in and get them

i go into the house
everything is dark and gray
and there is a pathway through the corridor
a few feet above the floor
like a smear
like the ghostly equivalent of an oil slick
there is a man
he's also a composite
off in a room
he's a little scary
and there's another woman in the kitchen
she's in a house dress, hair wrapped in a towel
her
i can hardly look at her
i don't want these people
they might be my ghosts, but i don't want them
i won't even talk to the woman in the kitchen
i head back to the man in the room
and i say something to him
which makes no sense to me
none whatsoever

it's dark in here
did i mention it's dark
and the smear is like a coiling ribbon of something
that might have some consciousness
and who is that goddamned woman in the car
thin bitch
to tell me i have to come back and get these people

and what i say:
what is the purpose of the cape
what is that supposed to do for you

and it's like i wrapped a little of their essence
around myself and pulled them with me
as i run out of the house
without having to actually take them, bodily
they need to stay in the house
if i bring them
they will drown me
in the darkness and muck

and then i wake up

so yeah yeah
i mean i can guess what that crap in the house was all about
but who's the chick in the car
that's what i want to know
is she somebody i ought to be letting talk
i don't recognize her
but she seems to be connected to me somehow
i would have been happy to lose her though
and just take off with the cat

if that dream was telling me something important
i don't think i got the message
it was just walking through cobwebs