Capturing the Minotaur

what is it about some dreams
when immediately after opening your eyes
this world once so solid
and so real
a world filled with people
and such involved drama
how can such a world
instantly turn to fog
and vanish into thin air?

"More strange than true. I never may believe
These antique fables nor these fairy toys.
Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,
Such shaping fantasies, that apprehend
More than cool reason ever comprehends.
The lunatic, the lover, and the poet
Are of imagination all compact.
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold—
That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt.
The poet’s eye, in fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to Earth, from Earth to heaven.
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.
Such tricks hath strong imagination,
That if it would but apprehend some joy,
It comprehends some bringer of that joy.
Or in the night, imagining some fear,
How easy is a bush supposed a bear!"
W.S. MSND

then how easy is it for that bear to disappear
and as the mind chases after it
the entire world around it also disappears
until there is only the stark reality
of the bed you have awoken to
the grey light
the same dull world
that surrounds you every day?

but then
there are other dreams
that cling to you
as you rise out the murky seas
starfish and barnacles
that ride back attached
and reluctant to remove themselves
often they are utterly ordinary
fragments of a larger
dream narrative
more often
that rich and interwoven narrative
is left behind
and all that remains
is the objective correlative
of the sad hermit crab
searching for a new shell

last night's dream
took place in a restuarant
not one that I remember
from my life
but familiar
I was a customer
but knew the staff
mostly women
all younger
and happily bantering
amongst each other
a man had come in the back door
and was causing trouble
he seemed drunk
confused
but was aggressive
and asking for money
the girls convinced him
to wait in the office
they came to me
and told me about their problem
I walked into the back
we were scrambling for a weapon
the man was yelling
and I wanted to be able
to defend myself
the back area
was like a labyrinth
which the women knew well
but by the time we arrived
in the storeroom
where I hoped to find a weapon
I was completely disoriented
the halls were narrow
and lined with cheap
wood paneling
corkboards overfilled with notices
photographs
stickers
jokes
and letters
cheaply framed photos
lined the walls
as we walked past
a massive wooden walk-in door
we heard the man yelling
from inside
the women were scared
and I realized
all I needed to do
was to pull down
a heavy metal bar
like those on an ice house
that would seal the man inside
I quickly fumbled with the bar
locking the man inside
he realized he was trapped
and increased his furious yelling
the girls were laughing
and taunting him