Die Traumdeutung

This time, I’m listening on the radio
The explosion, even on speakers
Rattles my ribcage. There are screams
Chaotic shouts, voices I think I know
Or maybe I don’t, and then silence
This is the new Age of Anxiety

If I am a camera, I see three starfish in the bed
All of us dreaming, one of us too young
Too have learned to dream in red
Jump cut to a wide shot of the sky
Three hundred million fists clenched tight

All these months I’ve slept
With a pencil tied onto my finger
Thinking that it might help me sleep
But instead I find I’m left
With these photographs that only linger
After I write down what I’ve seen

After the silence, a change of scene. I’m
In some kind of safe house, having my
Head shaved, being trained as an assassin
I think these images must spring
From the vault of action movies
I have stockpiled on sleepless nights, on
Transatlantic flights over the ocean

For tours, a relic of an earlier age
When we sat in airport lounges drinking Scotch
Eating pretzels, watching cable news
Oblivious to the mess that I was making for you