Really, what you are doing
is dreaming reality.
The dream smells foul,
keeps poking at you,
makes crying, moaning sounds.
Hunger is in it, and hurt.
It makes you eat reality.
It keeps stuffing reality down throat
like a sausage and swinebraten.
The tile feels cold through your socks.
The wish is to be someplace else.
The woman you want is someone else’s.
You can imagine her naked,
i.e. her mythical forest.
What you need is money for Munich
but you don’t have any.
The train station guard
shoves you away with a stick.
You want to invoke Plato,
tell the guard you’re just a shadow,
you should ride for nothing,
but Plato’s not available.
He’s still beating the hell out of some idea
that’s beating the hell out of you.
All you know about Plato is
he was a dog you had once.
He was never alone at the age of 19
on the streets of Frankfurt , Germany
at the end of the Twentieth Century.
You’re certain he never felt
the urge to vomit this urgently.
He never lost his way
in a bathroom stall.
He never threw up
this much knowledge.