hypnagogia

By RC deWinter

lost voices
speak to me in the
corridor
of dreams where
there is never any light
to illuminate

the speaker //
sometimes i know the
voice // sometimes

it’s one i’ve
never ever heard before
but //  in any case //

i always
pay strict attention
to the words
even when
i can’t identify them //
because i know these

messages
will fall into place
sometime in
the future //
and though the message may not
manifest in the

in the light
of reality
for years i’ve
learned not to
to ignore them // even if
in the present there’s

no frame of
reference // i don’t
know why the
universe
has chosen to instruct me
this way but it is

what it is
so i heed them all //
the known

and unknown//

because there’s never been a
time when they’ve been wrong

RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, (Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, 11/2021) The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021), in print: 2River, Event, Gargoyle Magazine, the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Poetry South, Prairie Schooner, Southword, The Ogham Stone, Twelve Mile Review, Variant Literature, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.