fantasies

When you are young, indulge no fantasies.
they'll corrupt the perfect dream you carry deep inside.
Intact, strong, purposeful as an arrow, don't let
the drag of smoke resist yr freedomflight, just
smirk when strange others confide their fantasies to you.
Live in the real world of yr perfect dream, breathing
nobody's sloppy second breath slow over your shoulder
in the dull dreamy snore of fantasy's warm seduction, keep your eyes
wide open on the roaring rushing racing road- the perfect dream
requires every secret centimeter of the summoned focus of
yr perfect world.

When you are middle aged, allow your fantasies to co exist.
The dream has faded, it is monday's laundry left out
to stiffen in the cold breeze of tuesday night, forgotten
arrow shirts and linen suits and underwear--so let the fantasies
remain, and let them in with gentle smiles. The man you married
still looks good from a distance, the girl you chose
still sounds sweet on the telephone, reminding you of other girls.
The children you bore becoming giants now, familiar
only in some nontouchable and distant way
but in their eyes are echoes of some early stardust, perhaps left over
from someone else's fantasy. and what of dreams--the screen door
screeches in the wind, the weekend's gone, the dream you chased is
chasing you, the fantasies will giggle in the clouds, it's monday morning
roaring up to pick you up -yet again.

But when you're old, bid, no, beg! fantasy to enter by your side.
Beckon & cajole the softness of the sidelong glance, look sweetly at the
crone you married, once your blushing bride and kiss her hand, some
dulcinea princess from far fantasy's bold landscape of the blind
and court the fantasies that tease from dusty corners where they fell.
Recall the ancient stooped man next to you as don quijote, comic knight
of all faith imagination love and high nobility, not this fainting
farting clown who rescues pillows as his favorite companions in the night
but all your own in this gentle kingdom of the kind, and hold his hand
next to your heart where sweet accordions once played poetic melodies
and tangos wild and mad, embrace the fantasy with all that's left inside
the magic throbbing dreaming core of soul, & heart & mind.

No, when you're young, don't let the fantasies that flirt take hold
and carry you far from the bold hallucination of the greatness of the personal. Don't let them show you all you are and all that you can never be, for that in middle age and elder hood and fantasy is still to learn,
& will be learned & must be sadly learned
all in the plenteous wisdom of the passages of other fantasies,
and whirling flow, relentless time. But blessed you'll be if after
all & all you still remain, with breath & bone
to indulge in life's most final passing stage: abandoned
to the child's own game, the knowledge that every step of every stage
along the way was even then and even now
yet but another breath of fantasy.