Platinum

I had a very short dream, one of those ones you have just before you wake up; actually all my dreams seem to be those, or perhaps it's just the ones I remember. Tangent: My understanding is that we only dream when we are in REM phase, but that REM means we are in deep sleep mode, so how does that work - Logically one might assume that we would take a while to go from deep-level up through more superficial levels before eventually waking. BUT, waking from dreams contradicts this logic - I guess it's one of those counterintuitive things, whoa.
In any case, this is a case of the poem title just accidentally being clever, it only occurred to me when I'd finished.
Being that that dread word 'inspiration' often translates into only dribs and drabs of disconnected text, I was pleased that such a short dream could render a relatively substantial piece of verse. I think it's down to a continuation of a theme of things like bullets and flames and carousing tunnels and so forth cutting through the everyday, or, better put, distracting us from the distracting. Also though the dream was short, visually it had a high impact, which remains so that even way after the dream takes place, the visual develops and drives the words.

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Pipe Dream

one of those effluent pipes you see at beaches
except flowing from this one was not waste
but a whooshing fire - the sound of it
a platinum cotton-like flame, relieving the sky
clean, the original universe waxing
onto the coarse fettered landscape
a reminder of things past, of things pure
the origin opaque, the source mysterious
nebulous in form, the flame not the source,
but not cloudy in consistency, nor even hot;
strained light, atmospheric discharge,
it cut through but was not intrusive,
it was one-with, severally focused
but razor-quick and as it crackled
the sand and licked the nitrogen
as I morphed from inner REM
to outer abrupt furniture
so the thought occurred, as implied as the whoosh,
the dream-flame already embered, but:
one bleached glow is in the background
and it is a thought emanating and the thought
is an echo and the echo is a doubt and the doubt
niggles and finally eventually surfaces:
Who are we to say that dragons don't exist.