My Nightmares

My ideas are in hiding Afraid of the secret police For they are in Kansas City My poems are not wanting to goosestep I hear glass breaking It does not wake me up at first But when it does I am in Portland And my poem is standing on a man’s neck I am screaming for it to get off He is yelling that he cannot breathe. Terror infiltrates me as I realize I am paralyzed. I can hear my heartbeat; double-time now. My ideas are in a fetal position, lying under benches. Visualizing concentration camps Oh, excuse ME! Internment camps. Children being torn from their mother’s arms. Crying and wailing. Cages. Dirty rotten government men. My poems are turning themselves into stories. I am no help. I am paralyzed. Cannot stop the thoughts though. Swastikas are swirling around which is not comfortable. Now the Klan! Are you kidding? I am being marched out by chicken white hooders. My writing is holding its breath, lying in wait Thinking I will return. I may never be the same. This new development has me buckling at my knees. Someone cracks me across them with a whip. Someone speaks German at me. Crapppp! I barely know English. That’s a good one my muse says, making a note. I try to wake up, but there is someone sitting on my neck. I cannot breathe. I struggle, I scream Nothing comes out. My worst nightmare, and of course it is three a.m. The time I always have to go to the bathroom. Something big is sitting on my neck and my head. I give up, not caring about anything except breathing now. It’s the Covid 19, my muse says. We are obsessed with it I am so irritated, for it might not be my muse. It might be another personality; I have plenty of them. I sit quietly, waiting for the urge to write to pass. Unfortunately, it never does.