In the city of dreams it is always night time
and the black asphalt is wet from recent rain
so the streets shine.
The streets are paved with tarnished silver.
They gleam with pink ruby, red garnet, green peridot
blue sapphire, yellow citridine.
Emeralds and opals lead you deep
into the Aladdin’s cave where maybe you will find
the lamp like a gravy boat with a genie inside
and your wishes will be answered
because all that you have ever wanted
is nothing, no thing at all
just answers.
In the city of dreams the night time is the best time
because the wrong answers have gone away.
They have all withdrawn and fallen silent
in warm lairs full of furniture,
bathed in the lullaby glow of television screens,
silenced by the gentle clatter of cutlery and crockery,
sedated by seductive smells of cooking,
and curled up cozy in cushions and upholstery
until the only reminder
of their power to confuse and betray
is the gap between the tick and the tock of a clock,
the microsecond of silence
in the ebb and flow of sound.
In the city of dreams you go hunting in darkness,
you go searching the depths,
you enter the space between the lights,
for brightness will blind you
and only the secondhand glow of jewel colours
on wet pavements and roads
can guide your footsteps toward the monster
at the heart of the labyrinth,
around the next corner,
at the end of that alley,
waiting in that black doorway
where the shadow is denser and darker and more threatening
so maybe at last it might jump out and attack you.
In the city of dreams it is always night time
and it is always beautiful, lonely, scary
as you walk away from what is known,
as you turn your back on safety,
as you abandon all comforts,
and follow where it leads you –
that alarm buzzer in your belly that says
“Beware”—
for how can you face the future
without the answer,
how can you live your life in freedom
until you have found your fear
and know forever its face and its name.
The city of dreams can only be entered at night.
There will be no sun, no moon, no stars,
only the reflections on wet blackness of cold neon light
glowing like uncut unpolished gemstones
paving the path toward the unknown
which is your destination and your home,
for all that you have been is lost forever
and in between you and what you will be
is the abyss and the only clue, the only key,
the only Aladdin’s lamp containing your genie
must first be found
and from the terrible talons of nightmare fear reclaimed
over and over and over again.