"I Hate Dreams", "Green”, "The Last Miracle of St. Nicholas", & "Body and Sol" by Aaron G.H.

I Hate Dreams

A synaptic celluloid that burns after every frame.

Vivid realities inhabited/

experienced

Constructed curiosities unwanted/

uncovered

Leaving a waking mind to ponder

And pretend

…to not linger…

[in that empty unmade space]

Stolen from time

Full lives unlived–

Vain visions

Of rapid-eyed sleep

or whispered shadows of the soul

Green

Found in the four-color box of crayons.

The secondary.

Out of what was I drawn?

This broken RYB that created me.

Honorary of the primaries

Latchkey to the Trinity

I envy Orange-

the paint of petals.

And Purple

the Red/Blue beautiful-

blush of clouds

to be truly blended

to be unboxed

to blush…

The Last Miracle of St. Nicholas

I learned the truth about Santa Clause in a car,

inferred in the exhaustion

of my mother.

Her tired sigh

replacing words

for why a neighborhood friend

got a foosball table

and I got a book.

Here my mom found a breaking point.

My passing thought

was left undefended and allowed to sink in.

We rolled up the street.

past the house with the new table

On a hill where the mighty myth fell—

with fairies and bunnies as well.

Body and Sol

You are the stuff of stars.

Is that the silver whisker that is shining forth from my thirty-three-year-old face

or the heat in my chest from fuel gone gaseous

causing solar plexus pain with no gain?

or maybe it’s that flare-up that nearly knocked my knee out of commission.

What constellation of symptoms shall seal my fate

as the light leaves my eyes

fading in the background of the dead of night

and I am dropped into a black hole?

Is this the stuff of stars?

If that is the case,

the star can stuff it.

A word from the author: The poem "I Hate Dreams" is a spiritual sequel to a poem I wrote titled "A Waking Thought". I experience vivid or lucid dreams almost nightly and these poems have come out of that frustration. "Green" grew out of an observation that my child's toys tended to favor the primary colors and green. This led me to look a bit into color theory and learn not only is there the RYB color model for pigments, but also the RGB color model based more on light perception and our eyes. Beyond these observations, there is a hidden exploration of a person's psyche when they feel the push-pull between societal norms and a more free expression of the individual. The other two are just for fun I guess.

Aaron G. H. is a pastor who serves a congregation in Minnesota and the producer/co-host of the podcast My Bad Poetry. Outside of this submission he has a poem in The Daily Drunk's "It Was Never a Phase: A Pop Punk Anthology" and a few others in Roi Fainéant Press.