Joe Shaw is a recent BA Creative Writing graduate from York St. John University. A curator at heart; he likes to explore the relationship between poetry and visual art practices.

Image: Hugh Auchincloss Steers, 1995
Cover image: Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes, The Dream, 1883

[dreams are more radical than our reality.]
– Guillermo Gómez Peña

i have never had that dream where I am falling.    falling falling falling.     breathless as the inevitable impact startles me awake.     put two heads together and they will both vision twinks running through a meadow. a fountain in the background.      with only a daisy to cover their sex.     incomplete wet dream.    kissing.     one touch leads to premature rousing.      imagination feverishly orchestrates the desires held in my head after leaving the pillow.       dream theory is not one that can be explained easily.     not even by judith butler. she was in the fountain.      glistening in the reflective pool.      you will never see mine.     i have forgotten them anyway.    like an umbrella left on the bus before the clouds open.

[if you are looking for hell ask the artist where it is.]

awake to lower abdominal pain.     the contorted limb and torso of another body my blanket.     sweat sticks lint and various other fibres to arm hair. miscellany of not-vacuumed-for-a-fortnight.     the curtain’s position allows for one slither of sunlight to fall across my eyes. this intimate greeting is limited.     i want to drag myself across the floor until I am engulfed in the hue.      maybe then the goosebumps will settle.      but I fear pressing my nose against the window in case someone pushes me from behind.      cracking membrane on glass.       where is the good life for all of us.      brother.     says the contorted limb. such a thing does not exist.