Craig Tigerman, US

 

 

Free Verse Foiled Plots Eight loyal lots lay in hot sun A prairie patch prepared, all done In great toil, plots in raised beds, Eight soiled spots, created spreads Too late at summer's end last year For fruit trees or roses to thrive here But this year, July now nearly ending, Parching drought bakes broiled blots, rending "If you don't grow me by now You will never never ever grow me..." Pallid phantom plantings plead; Eight foiled plots, no done deed.     Waking waking from the latest dream one eye seeks the clock's read-out to coax me up, the same routine as days become weeks, months years and all the little singular dreams mask out the few that matter the harder I strain to recall a dream the faster it fades, never re-seen familiar patterns lull to misperception time flies by without conception of how precious, fleeting, sorely missed are times to love and lips to be kissed there is a dream, a sleep, from which the waking is not into this world