John-a-Dreams

When you die, you’ll go to dreams.
You won’t haunt homes. You won’t haunt,

Scare, or scold souls with wide eyes.
This is the truth. You’ll go down

To dreams. You’ll act. You’ll play roles.
Know how, in your own dreams, names

Feel linked to the shades by threads,
How you wake up and say this

To the head just woke by you,
“In my dream you were you, but

Not like you”? That was a ghost,
Not one you knew, not from life

You’ve lived. It’s rare for the dead
To get to float through the dreams

Of a skull who knew them when.
The dead have to act, to act

Like live things, draped in false names.
They don’t do it well. You won’t

Do it well—how could you, when
You’ve flown like a deep-sea fish

At night to wind up in strange
Waves in a dim light, so close

To raw air, no sense of where
You are or who you should be?

While you live with dreams, note them
For this. Once gone, you’ll be them.