In America, we’re in a government shutdown–the longest we’ve experienced in our young nation’s history. With paychecks halted, FBI workers are lining up next to White House employees to get food distributions at Food Banks. Somebody pinch me. Surely this is fake news, right? No, you insist, it’s not? Well then. Double irony for $600, Alex, and pass the potatoes. This sure is a surreal way to bring in 2019. And sad.

Hence the poem that popped in my mind yesterday, Poe’s “A Dream Within a Dream.” I often want to pat Mr. Poe on the shoulder after reading one of his works. The intensity, the hopelessness, the sense of loss nearly burns the pages at times. He lived a short time, filled with misery and poverty, but he kindly left us jewels.

So read Poe; chew on some words of poets who have been through the human experience. Nibble on a cookie or three while we crack on in this human plight. “Rage, rage against the dying of the light” as Thomas said.

In my updates, I’m working on publishing a short, sci-fi story. It’s back from the editor and I’ll get cooking on it soon. Per usual, there is a dog in it.

A Dream Within a Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep 
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?