the night of dreams begins - an excerpt from "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

this excerpt from my novella-poem, "Sludge White and the Seven Curmudgeons"

begins the 'night of dreams', wherein each of the characters is visited in the

span of a single night.  it opens in the castle, where the queen has just shelved
her concocting efforts for the night, after the mirror interrupted the spell.  then
we visit the cottage of Guanyin and Sylvana, who were introduced in the excerpt
relating the aftermath of the drone attack on ByWater Landing.
*******

as she lay sleeping supposition surfaced,

skimming the stirring edge of recurring dreams,

where she restlessly wandered a bleak terrain

with its plundered and sundered, overmined seams.

but the dangling threads were superseded

in her fitful filtering of fussy detail;

by the need to sate her covetous hunger,

engulfing her senses like a toxic Grail.

her husband passed the night avoiding conflict,

staring past the omens glaring in the sky;

shying from silence, sidestepping reason,

and striving to recall just how it felt to cry.

when at last he lumbered into slumber

he found himself fêted by merchants from the town,

their fatted coffers flush with flashing coins;

but his eyes wept blood and he couldn't find his crown.

in the forested fringes of Fleagle's Fern,

in a cottage heaped with sleeping brooms and crows;

the hopeful dreams of Sylvana were sweetened

by diffident departures, scented with rose.

floral breezes floated in from the heather,

fluttering curtains, caressing curling toes;

redolent of their garden meanderings,

flirting with flowers in flaccid flaunting rows.

Guanyin sat serenely in spellbound silence,

contemplating space with wise and sightless eyes;

tenderly attended by the monkey,

a sorcerer's apprentice in simian guise.

all of a sudden a laugh escaped her lips,

and she nodded her head while the monkey grinned.

then he crept away so as not to intrude

on her intimate discussion with the wind.
*******
(thus endeth the excerpt - Evan Hawthorn, 13th of May, 2015)