The winter of ghosts

So there I am
Floating as I do with my face to the sky
Cloud beneath me
And beneath the cloud, the darkness unknown
In the sky above me there are angels
Like the boys in the room playing games that once made me smile
Like the best friends I spend my weekends with
They are my joys
Unknowingly drifting down to where I am
And lifting me up with their presence
When it’s time to go home they release me
I return to my downward drift
Extending my hand to the cloud at fingertip
Feeling the cold freeze through my arm

So there I was today
Wind blowing in my hair and what a mess it must have been
I felt so beautiful though
I wished there was a lover on hand to admire me and comment
Dishevelled as I was I walked out in the neighbourhood
By the creek that runs between suburbs
Urbane and ordinary
Still and quiet save for the cold wind
Like a ghost in a town with no citizens
I felt myself joining the earth
Not as a spiritual man would
But rather like a corpse returning to the dusty ground
Slowly devolving in metamorphosis to become dirt and grass and tree
An inanimate object without thought
Without fear
Without doubt
Without this divine purpose of consciousness
Of sentience and spirit
Without the stuff of psyche that I seem to lose so often these days
Or drop like loose coins as I stumble and stoop to gather them up again
Falling through my fingers like liquid
I lift my hands to my mouth and try to drink up my sense of self again
A dry and dusty tongue that scratches at my palms
Is that blood from the scratching?
Or just the essence of my soul spilling from my throat

This winter afternoon as I walked
I thought myself so close to death
Not by my will but by some strange and source-less power
A force to come and claim me back to the dark unknown from whence I was born
And the spirits were all around me speaking unintelligible language
I wondered whether they sought to keep me here
To deliver me to my angels
Or whether they whispered instruction to encourage the act
That would send me away from this place
All about me is noise
The world seems to hammer down and shout in my ears
Though I clasp my hands about my head
Their wails and screams and cackling laughter is something more than sound
It penetrates through my very flesh
Resonating in my fragile bones
Shaking the nervous system and sending unholy signals through my spine to the brain
I return home with the boys and crave coffee
The deliverance of freshly ground beans pressed and watered
Caffeine searches out the shaking nerves and shakes its own violent rhythm
Like cancelling waves my body and mind grow still
A daunting thought of addiction dawns on me
Years since I drank so much coffee
But looming destruction cancels my struggle for context
I will do my best to drink less coffee in the coming week
A strange thought that I should survive so long

As I read back upon my entry
None of it makes sense
But a low and quiet voice informs me that all is well with the expression
I ask the spirit – Was it I who wrote this?
But he merely shrugs his shoulders and disappears
Leaving me to stare stupefied at the vacant space where he was
I ask myself – Am I in the construct?
Or are my spirits leaking out into the real world
I realise I cannot tell the difference
Until some strange urbane happening drags me back into reality
So I flail about in search of my anchors
Hoping that it’s the right state of perceiving I’m taken to
Constantly wondering which dream I should be waking from