The Dreaming Cantos

by Greg Perry
 The Dreaming Cantos
by Greg Perry

copy right 2006

The grapez Press

Inspired by the words of Don Miguel Ruiz

 Dedicated to the Four Women of My Life:

My Mother, Gladys Feugill Perry

My Daughter, Maura (Emmy) Thompson
My True Love, Beverly Rigolizzo
My Mentor, Rhina Espaillat
 The Dreaming Cantos
I. Agreements
Prologue
1. Consciousness .................................................. 31
2. In Lectio Divina ............................................... 31
A. The Dreaming Cantos ..................................... 38
Inscription 1: Impeccability of the Word ............. 33
Inscription 2: Not Taking Things Persoonal ........ 34
Inscription 3: Not Making Assumptions .............. 35
Inscription 4: Always Do Your Best .................... 36
Introduction
3. Clearing ............................................................ 37
4. New Day .......................................................... 37
B. Point of View .................................................. 38
II. Love
Energy
5. Sea, Sky, Ground ............................................. 41
6. Naturally ........................................................... 41
C. Ardor ............................................................... 42
Creation
7. Revelation ........................................................ 43
8. Guarantees ........................................................ 43
D. Rebirthstone .................................................... 44
Overcoming
9. The Voice of Knowledge ................................ 45
10. False Luv ...................................................... 45
E. Artistry ............................................................. 46
III. The Dream
Fictions
11. Adamnic ......................................................... 49
12. Odysseus ........................................................ 49
F. Stories .............................................................. 50
The Real World
13. Voice of the Past ............................................ 51
14. Material Fabrications ..................................... 51
G. Circadian Rhythms .......................................... 52
History
15. Becoming Another ......................................... 53
16. Conspiracies ................................................... 53
H. Orchestrations ................................................. 54
IV. Domestication
Evolutions
17. Solutions ........................................................ 57
18. Options ........................................................... 57
I. Instructions ....................................................... 58
Fear
19. The Mist ......................................................... 59
20. Voices ............................................................ 59
J. The Fog ............................................................. 60
Stories
21. The Alien ....................................................... 61
22. The Boss ......................................................... 61
K. The Joker ......................................................... 62
V. The Skyler Ancillaries
First Ancillary
23. First Epistle .................................................... 65
24. First Chronicle ............................................... 65
L. First Line .......................................................... 66
Second Ancillary
25. Second Hand .................................................. 67
26. Second Thoughts ............................................ 67
M. Second Sun ..................................................... 68
Third Ancillary
27. Third World ................................................... 69
28. Third Eye ........................................................ 69
N. Third Time’s the Charm .................................. 70
VI. Belief
Myth
29. Critique of Pure Reality ................................ 73
30. The Gods of Logic ......................................... 73
O: What's Up Doc? ............................................. 74
Essence
31. Effervescence ................................................. 75
32. Rigged ............................................................ 75
P. Play It Again Samsara ..................................... 76
Facts
33. Quarks ............................................................ 77
34. Knot God ........................................................ 77
Q. The Mayonnaise of Maya ................................ 78
VII. Dreaming
Streams
35. Dreamland ...................................................... 81
36. Afterlife .......................................................... 81
R. Morning Glory ................................................. 82
Tide
37. Perchance ....................................................... 83
38. Draft ............................................................... 83
S. Flood ................................................................ 84
Real
39. House of Mirrors ........................................... 85
40: Attention Span ............................................... 85
T. The Tao of Dreams .......................................... 86
Shadows
45.Chaos ............................................................... 93
46. Reckoning ...................................................... 93
W. Baptism .......................................................... 94
IX. Creation
Waters
47. Lakeside Meditation ..................................... 97
48. Shore .............................................................. 97
X. The Word ........................................................ 98
Life
49. Quantum ......................................................... 99
50. Pulpit .............................................................. 99
Y. Resurrection .................................................. 100
The Mystic
51. Vision ........................................................... 101
52. Beyond Words ............................................. 101
Z. The Dream's Prayer ....................................... 102

VIII Waking
Views
41. And the Eternals ............................................ 89
42. Worlds ............................................................ 89
U. Planetary Breathing ........................................ 90
Divinity
43. Continuum ..................................................... 91
44.Creed ............................................................... 91
V. Rider in the Rain ............................................ 92
 I. Agreements
The outside dream hooks our attention and teaches us what to
believe, beginning with the language that we speak. Language
is the core for understanding and communication between
humans. Every letter, every word in each language is an
agreement.
~Miguel Ruiz
1. Consciousness
Action heroes moving
grand decisions forward
to creation; super
conscious effort turning
future tense toward living
recreation; inner
dialogues of anxious
paradises-lost turn
unexpressed at present.
2. In Lectio Divina
In Lectio Divina,
holy readings of
their scripture, monks reflect
on passages as open
conversations with
their God. And in that spirit
I’ve been reading words
by Don Miguel Ruiz
and writing poetry
A. The Dreaming Cantos
I call the Dreaming Cantos.
I am energy,
that essence of the living
universe, who dreams
this nightmare of our planet,
hellish lies of fear
and loathing. But with love
and true forgiveness, I
begin to dream anew.
Prologue
In the summer of 2006, I discovered the books of
Don Miguel Ruiz. It wasn’t exactly a New World,
but one I felt I had always known, but somehow we
had never been properly introduced. Things I had felt
on an intuitive level as well as things I had learned on
an intellectual one suddenly were revealed to me in a
metaphysical way. A fog lifted. The holy sun was
shining. And all summer long I would read his words
and then would write my own, attempting to digest
things in the best way I know how. In poetry.
Inscription 1: Impeccability of the Word
Inscription 2: Not Taking Things Personal
For better or for worse,
with every word, we make A thousand lives will orbit
our world alive again. your life each day. Each one
complies by laws of nature
With every action taken,
we make creation dawn distinctive from the ones
again. With every day, your world obeys. So pay
allegiance to the gravity
we generate a light,
despite our lies, that leads of your own. But question
our life to love, if wise. even that: don’t let
false airs turn wings to stone.
Inscription 3: Not Making Assumptions
Inscription 4: Always Do Your Best
Most questions can’t be answered
but we reason every
unknown anyways.
It doesn’t matter if
our finding’s true; a lie
that keeps us safe will do.
But in a world where mystery
is the answer, only
truth provides a clue.
That energy which moves
my incarnation is
the concept they call God.
To catch it like a sail
encompassing the wind
is all there is to do.
No idol, ritual,
or mantra is so dear.
My motion is my prayer.
Introduction

3. Clearing
After the flood, the river
forgives the rain for falling,
and the land forgives
the river for rising. The sun
reflects on everything
transpired and calls it a day.
The next day nothing remains
except the recollection
a watermark has made.
B. Point of View
Fathom not the peaks
of someone’s point of view,
unless it’s really yours—
and then you know it’s never
true. Such depths don’t lie
within our own life’s story.
At best, truth is sensation,
sound. The instant voiced,
it tenders higher ground.

4. New Day

Faith is but a sail

boat drifting in a river
on this certain morning

underneath a navy
firmament enlightened
by a nuclear

reaction that consigns

four million tons of awe
towards otherness per second.
II. Love
Energy

5. Sea, Sky, Ground

C. Ardor
Blue with love, the sea
embraces sailboats with
an ever-flowing present. Scientists are certain
that the world is simply
Blue with love, the sky energy aligned
exchanges visionary
daylight with a cloud.
in forms of matter if
Blue with love, we live and when we see them so.
on ground reflected from
around, below, above.
But love is form that sees

itself as energy
and recognizes nothing
6. Naturally
else will tend to matter.
A photograph defines
an element of landscape
with chromaticity,

delineation, and
cold-blooded certitude.
The eye sees differently.

In fear, surroundings lose

all sight—outlandish perspective—
but love looks naturally.
Creation

7. Revelation
To dream creation, I
reveal creation deeply
saturating me
becoming life revealing
love is all there is.
The Beatles dreamt it, Jesus
dreams it, Buddha, Moses,
and Mohammed. Even
Einstein loves that living.
8. Guarantees
D. Rebirthstone
An amethyst owl alone
—in skies of onyx darkness—
forwards his voice to discover
territories once
the terror of points unknown.
There, taking heart he is singing
a round of love, an expression
forgotten but now reflecting
the lapis of utter creation.

Note: disassembly voids

all warranties; your word
wields guarantee enough;

the small print is the simple

recognition that love
assumes no previous

arrangement with the former

or future, so and so
on ad infinitum.
Overcoming

9. The Voice of Knowledge

Neurosis, God of Lies

We Tell Ourselves, All Knowing
Omnipotent Belief E. Artistry
informs me of my perfect
inability Our lives are not exactly
to write this poem about
random, but follow love
Emotion, Heart on High, in ways distracted by
Archangel of Our Passion.
In Mythomania—CRY!
the sudden gust of fear
or other emotional
10. False Luv obstructions. But spirit waits.
People love to fall
in love—for reasons many In time your life creates
misunderstand. It's never
its art. Not art for art’s
romantic paradise own sake, but life, at heart.
nor sexual kingdom come
we're crazy for—not even

the love of another lover.

It's license to love one's self
because we're loved by another.
III. The Dream
Fictions

11. Adamnic

I eat an apple whole

and know without a sailor’s
doubt the world is sharp, F. Stories
my life is built in ruins,
and nothing holds me here The issue of our lives,
but gravity and hope—
you see—they’re just invention.
for freedom from such knowledge— Nothing’s real but life
for oranges and gardens,
New Jersey before the traffic.
itself; the rest is fiction.
Some are better story-
12. Odysseus tellers, start at once
Every yacht is looking
condescendingly. upon a time and go.
And all directions point
And some will wait in vain
at me, insinuating, for greater truths to show.
with the current, tales
of second-rate Ulysses.

I know it isn’t so;

it’s just the planet moving
me to think I know.
The Real World

13. Voice of the Past

Voices inside my ears!

The boy I was who fears
first grade soon tears at me. G. Circadian Rhythms
The adolescent lost
in sere self-consciousness The dream climbs higher daily,
still reappears High Noon.
reaching altitudes
The husband, now divorced, no one has ever gained:
avoids—nay jeers—June love.
Pray soon I overhear.
tuition, mortgages,
insurance, entertainment
14. Material Fabrications systems of religious
The dream is real enough
to sleep through life, pretending body politics
fashion matters: madras
erotic war. No wonder
bleeds for you. Belief, we’re afraid of waking.
we know, is strong enough
to judge ourselves an open

book: seersucker thinks

for you. Our guilt grows common:
polyester rules.
History

15. Becoming Another

In the beginning poured

the light and such delight
became the body filled H. Orchestrations
with insight that divines
the brightness whole around We are the walls and ceilings
and all within until
where roomfuls of effects
some particle begins determine who we really
to call attention to
itself as something other.
pretend to be. Or are we
blood and intestinal
16. Conspiracies extremities? Or do
Who killed Kennedy
suspends our disbelief we move invisibly
in no solution. Lone
and lovely in concert with
assassins disassemble. one living symphony?
The grassy knoll is not
another solid rock.

But stories come and go.

Commissioned fabrications
make one hell of a show.
IV. Domestication
Evolutions

17. Solutions

Our reality
evolved by physical
necessity to what I. Instructions
it is today: a mirror
of our senses for They scare up a screwdriver.
survival. It’s subjective,
You secure the wrench.
not a true solution Then rest a bolt within
of what is. What is
will breed re-evolution.
an ear canal and turn
your consciousness until
18. Options domestication clicks.
No words elucidate
the present energetic Be careful not to strip
look: a symmetry
the thread of narrative
evolving from opposing or else there is no else.
stimuli. On one
hand there’s the milk of love.

But from a sharper hand

spills blood. You either smile
or cry—until you die.
Fear

19. The Mist

The cormorants are not

afraid to be alive.
The cormorants are merely J. The Fog
drying off their wings
while waiting in the mist Afraid to be alive,
to hear this bedtime story
I wandered in a world
about a man who sits of fog and listened to
beneath an eastern pine,
afraid to be alive.
the voices in my head
afraid to be alive.
20. Voices Deep-rooted voices whisper
Afraid to be alive,
the pine trees shed their needles, in my head a bygone
quiet down the younger
fog of dreams that seems
rhododendrons, still afraid to be alive.
the voices in the sky.
Afraid to be alive

no more, the pine trees shed

their old growth fabrications,
voice their green and thrive.
Stories

21. The Alien

The war of worlds is not

an alien invasion
from the deepest reaches K. The Joker
of the universe
but one within ourselves We love our stories more
against our self. It’s life
than all the teas from God.
contesting all the stuff They fit like threadbare slippers—
that’s alien to life—
our extraterrestrial story.
worn dark nights before
we nod. These dreams are all
22. The Boss that stand between sea level
One day the river descends
to depths of blue pollution. and our weak-kneed legs.
So angry it could flood
We aren’t exactly chicken;
the sea itself—although we really want the eggs.
it knows the ocean is
its better—it drowns the rainbow

trout and underlings

instead. Such subjects fill
our food chain to be fed.
V. The Skyler Ancillaries
First Ancillary

23. First Epistle

Dear Skye, I saw myself

the other day, a mirror
image echoing L. First Line
accounts I’ve told myself.
He said his name was Skyler. A dragonfly will draw
He worshipped dragonflies
these perfect storylines
and preached a nebulous across our consciousness
philosophy of odd
belief but no surprise.
connecting mythical
creations with the buzzing
24. First Chronicle drone of what we think
He tells his story well.
Environmentally reality to be.
correct, he labors in
Such lines are true although
a mill recycling paper. the stories disagree.
Skyler recycles wit
as well, a poet just

like me, his latest work

involving dragonflies,
their buzzwords almost wise.
Second Ancillary

25. Second Hand

That dragonflies are neither

tells you less of words
than wisdom in their choosing. M. Second Sun
That dragonflies are sometimes
damselflies relays The light of dragonflies
awareness that’s confusing.
reveals itself in time,
That dragonflies are landing at first a subtle, almost
on my hands conveys
this story for my musing.
diaphanous delight,
becoming neutron bright
26. Second Thoughts in sun’s own dynamite.
I know that Skyler wants
to draft another poem Softly, this summer day,
concerning dragonflies.
the light of dragonflies
They’ve opened up his eyes alights on light au lait.
to all that universe
behind this wall of things

he’s seen since God knows when,

that’s made him think he doesn’t
realize where he’s been.
Third Ancillary

27. Third World

I wish to say this straight

as flights of dragonflies.
The world is not the world N. Third Time’s the Charm
we see and sense as such.
That’s just a dream within Instead of new construction
our story. Dragonflies
I know dragonflies.
consider us as much Instead of interstates
as we consider what
the otherworldly is.
descending through the suburbs
I see dragonflies.
28. Third Eye Instead of subjects, objects,
If Skyler understood
what all these dragonflies flags, geography,
are signifying, he
untold woods and rivers,
would see enlightenment. behold the dragonflies.
But Skyler only knows
the wonder dragonflies

present the world and words

to tell such wonder with.
His dragonflies flee myth.
VI. Belief
Myth

29. Critique of Pure Reality

The dream begins with green

accordions unfolding,
revealing oranges O: What's Up Doc?
exchanging names with apples.
Momentarily Perfection is a diamond
the watermelons look
in our carbon-based
real business-like. A lemon reality. Perfection
is a lemon is
our carrot after all.
hurts and there’s no crying
in perfection, Joe.
30. The Gods of Logic Perfection is a carrot
The gods no longer use
the telephone or ask Bugs Bunny never wanted.
a sacrifice of first
Elmer Fudd desires
an appetizer, say that silly rabbit though.
the quesadillas. No,
they raise us to invest

instead in logical
mythologies like time,
wall space, and toiletries.
Essence

31. Effervescence

If we’re doomed to always

misrepresent the essence
inherent in the living P. Play It Again Samsara
ineffability
with words too effing stupid You must accept the fact
for words, then why we try
there are no facts except
is unbelievably that fact, before the truth
cold-blooded or else a warm-hearted
tolerance for tales.
begins to dawn on you
that you are not the true
32. Rigged authentic you, but one
I’ve read the history books,
and clipper ships once spanned who suffers through a life
this harbor with their rigging,
conducted from a view
bent on places once untrue. It’s love that’s you.
the terror. This we know
from chronicles and paintings.

But none has leaked a single

secret in the making,
never mind an era.
Facts

33. Quarks

And verily we fail

to comprehend the quarks
we really tend to be Q. The Mayonnaise of Maya
believing facts instead
involving physical There’s not an ounce of knowledge
anatomies containing
worth the weight of living
brain and kindred matter, yet we value nothing
despite the sciences
we know that preach the other.
better than belief.
We understand so little
34. Knot God yet profess to know
Poetry without
a god is like a cell the meaning of it all.
without a formula,
But worthiness of fact
or to be more precise, like a cell is infinitely small.
whose knot of formula
contains a circular

reference, always referring

back to itself, false gods
without the poetry.
VII. Dreaming
Streams

35. Dreamland

This energy we call

the weather answers clearly
summer perfect high, R. Morning Glory
endowing energies
interpreted as river, The river is a dream
meadow, hillside, trees
that wakens in a sea.
with vibrant spectrums filled The sailboats in its stream
within, without, with light.
This dream is out of sight!
pull at their moorings while
the current of the earth
36. Afterlife whispers about the birth
A fishing line is breaking
through my view, a thread this morning of the sun.
of other consciousness
Soon they will open sail
broadcasting its desire to make their own dream run.
past my impassiveness.
It’s strung as tight as life,

a tautological
conclusion well-supported
by nothing at its end.
Tide

37. Perchance

We wake from nightmares half-

asleep and deeply conscious
we’ve been dreaming life S. Flood
away. Still weary though,
we know we need to sleep The tide begins to turn,
again, towards reverie
all sailboats drifting towards
instead this time, angelic the parallel of current.
revelations. Or else,
return to living dead.
An ocean asserts itself
with hesitation at first;
38. Draft our rudders remember the river.
But once awake, your dream
becomes a beach ball maybe, But then the pull of something
something frisbee free,
like the moon transports
a dream that knows it’s dreaming our will to face the sea.
circle alphabets
the coloring of roses,

heart of hearts, the word

aware it’s poetry
alive before rewriting.
Real

39. House of Mirrors

The real world isn’t all

that real. There’s images
on images and dreams T. The Tao of Dreams
to dream. There’s who we hope
you think we are, and who The bridge that opens is
we judge we really are,
the only way to take.
and who we guess you are. And where the river meets
But none of them are who
we live when loving true.
the sea begins the dream
the earth remembers when
40: Attention Span it sleeps. Horizons far
Death convinces me
the story of my life away seem much closer than
excepting love is nothing
our course. But when you start
unimaginary. to drift, you’ll see its source.
Understandably,
familiarity

with unreality
will breed a certain knowledge
insubstantial too.
VIII Waking
Views

41. And the Eternals

Past Blake and innocence,

I dream an aspen quaking
in experience, U. Planetary Breathing
its argent parchments forgetting
that they’re silver leaves, The secret is to breathe
believing to be gray
the earth within and turn
decreed and regulation- a pleasant landscape green,
sized—until a sounder
wind can turn the pages.
and then exhale yourself
completely out becoming
42. Worlds high horizon blue.
The Navajo have no
appellative for global In time you’ll circle back
warming. And that’s a start.
to what you’ve always been—
Unlearn the names of all a loving scenic view.
those spheres we’ve sorely profaned!
There’s no reality

like tragedy and, man,

the comedy is this:
we swear such worlds are real.
Divinity

43. Continuum

Before Greg Perry, I

believed I knew myself
a personality V. Rider in the Rain
as callow as leaflets, as
emotional as iron. Divinity resides
Little I knew that ages
in Phoenix, moonlighting as
ago, I exercised photo- a paralegal. Living
synthesis, and eons
from now, I’ll oxidize.
with her eternal sweetheart,
she’s now expecting. You
44.Creed exist within her mind,
I don’t believe myself
believing in beliefs as I do. In a New
breathed into being by
York minute, we will move
some dreamweaver and sons to Arizona too.
incorporated. Truth
be told I just believe

in disbelief—the sun,
the further, and holistic
enchilada, dear.
Shadows

45.Chaos

A trawler waits in harbor.

Its gillnet is entwined
haphazardly while waiting W. Baptism
to make the passage to sea,
where fishing crews will lower Between the concept and
that illusive weight
its realization lies
below the surface shadows— a shadow world where life
to capture something formless
between its open spaces.
returns in play of light.
Between the shadows comes
46. Reckoning a focusing of sight,
Our story is a lie,
one consecrated by revealing something bright.
the faith that holds the whole
Between such focal points
shebang together, faith an energy anoints.
in negatives and less
than integrated figures.

Pray for greater faith

than zero, faith to reveal
the wraith and make it real.
IX. Creation
Waters

47. Lakeside Meditation

The green unbroken tree-

lined shores surround this lake
like dreams, defining life, X. The Word
encircle consciousness.
The cumulus-filled sky So all things here have names:
beyond commands attention the rocks; the pond; the wind;
like each thought that passes the waves, invisible
in our head. That all
is one is left unsaid.
and visible. Yet names
annihilate the living
48. Shore energies around
The miracle of lakes
and all that water gathered and in me. Everything
like a congregation is indefinable
found reflecting sky: and absolutely lovely.
the individual sparkle;
ripples of genuflecting

white caps; waves intoning

rocky shore; the depths
unseen, unknown, but sure.
Life

49. Quantum

Sailing the dream called life

depends on essential force
we cannot see. It fills Y. Resurrection
our cells with microbursts
we solely divine are there Sometimes I forget
because they will our movement.
that death stands in an open
Resistance to this motion door awaiting life
is vain fantasy,
a death-defying notion.
to ask it in with welcome
arms and house and title,
50. Pulpit acknowledging that all
Returning from the sea,
I fear the land is something belongs to it except
of an afterthought,
this present moment, now!,
superfluous, dependent and nothing else is vital.
on its visible
extent and boundaries,

but there’s no substitute

I can identify.
The amber waves grow high
The Mystic

51. Vision

The world beyond our senses

probably exists
without our time and spatial Z. The Dream's Prayer
preoccupations, working
past and future in O Ever-creating Creation,
the present, there and back
Grant me the Faith to Sever
again to here, where mystics The Bonds of this Old and Untrue
see a semblance of
materiality.
Dream, and through Wisdom and Focus
In Love and Compassion, Create
52. Beyond Words This New and Beautiful Dreaming,
Seraphic fantasies.
Celestial chiffon Here on Mother Earth,
phonetics. Nanosecond
Beneath this Father Sky,
secular liaison. Within the Great Mysterious.
Sonic nitrogen.
Genetic Ichabod

kaboom. Bombastic time

tomato. Matter tune.
Notorious retracing.