Ghost in the Machine

A Dream in Winter, 96’

The great northern forest was hushed by dense, falling snow.

The snow, as a fog, seemed to separate me from the innumerable, tall, dark, pines that faded into the white distance.
Solitarily, in pairs, and in groups, a great many owls fluttered and glided over me in silence; passing through the fog and into the distance, gradually filling the lower branches of the ghostly pines as far as I could see.
The owls shook the snow from their feathers as they preened, without notice of me.
I knew that one of them was my father. And I knew that he was home, without memory of horror, and without pain.


From the depths, dreams are delivered;
shifting and tumbling through the mire, gaining speed as pressures subside,they make their way to the surface.

Contours flash, surfaces glow, and substance is revealed as their journey nears the light of consciousness.

Images of objects and places, unknowingly stored in the recesses of the mind, are selected, assembled, pieced together, encrypted for the recipient, and jettisoned from fathoms below.

These messages, written in the language of the soul, are communicated and in darkness they take shape in a myriad of forms:

secret, as the whispering breath of a lover to the ear, warm, sweet, and sublime;
horrid, thrown before one, howling, gnashing, and biting like an animal caged;
welcomed, like a nudge to the ribs from a childhood friend.

These flickering moments are artfully crafted to expose the workings of the heart; unveiling condition, reaction, and intent.

The aged majority are from a familiar library and the necessity of their delivery is understood.

But some, a rare few, speak from other volumes and are parcels, not of my own.