SESTINA SATURDAY: In Which It Happens Again

(Digital painting by Jose Anibal Gonzales)

Two fragile, slender twins entered my dream
Again last night, ghosts from another time
Or universe, determined so to haunt
Me through this period. It's passing strange,
That nephews I don't have perturb my sleep
And all my waking hours with the sound

Of plaintive cries. Their fear's a painful sound,
They're stalked by death, these two, within my dream,
A death that is their heritage. To sleep
Is to commune with this pair across time
And wonder what they need from me. Their strange,
Uncanny claim on me's an endless haunt.

Meanwhile, conjured a friend of mine a haunt,
That comes among us without sight or sound,
A program or a virus that eats time,
Attacking clocks and spreading, like a strange
Intelligence, man-made, whose only dream
Is robbing from us hours in which we sleep

Or work, but I suspect it's really sleep
That we would lose by losing. That would haunt
Us all, forced to be conscious all the time
And doubting our reality, each sound,
Each thought resembling something from a dream,
Experience, each one, beyond just strange...

What are these tales for? What could be the strange
Intent of these blond boys, this program? Sleep
Brings questions but no answers as each dream
Spins and careens; we go from haunt to haunt
Of memory and unknown worlds of sound
And sight, familiar and yet not, each time.

Awake, too, in my bed, I watch the time
When Morpheus avoids me, when my strange
Immersions cough me up and ev'ry sound
Is alien, each shadow lack of sleep
Will magnify, another curious haunt.
Exploding head's as weird as any dream.

I love to dream, and do it all the time,
And welcome, yes, the haunt and all the strange
Ideas, but wish my sleep could be more sound.