Have you tried to catch a dream
Upon waking? Half asleep?
Chaotic remnants for the taking
Assembled as a patchwork mess

Of puzzled pain, we can’t confess
Assembling fragments, bits, and pieces
Cotton dreamscapes; folds and creases
A line or two at best, I guess
You speak so nonchalant

A question for a poet’s prompt
Some thoughts I have, a vain response
Yet, pour I will, my words like wine
While cleverly I waste your time

It seems as good a place as any
Turn a phrase for the sake of rhyme
But time is never truly wasted
A prompt exists till we replace it

Inspiration rushes
Breaking constraints of a word
Filling in the blanks
From what is seen and what is heard

When I was a boy, ten years old
There was no fear of hot or cold
No yesterdays; no life regrets
No guilt to bear what age forgets

But now the view is not the same
Perception has been skewed, you see?
All at once, it’s scaring me
Same as it once set me free

This beach seems like a dream of sorts
Contortionist; your body shrinks
Cold blank spaces filled with ink
Childhood’s end to make me think

Sundays bring nostalgia
Saturdays and summer sky
Hard to tell these days fly by
Melting into where’s and whys

I tell my friends I’m going
Send them pictures of my meals
Reels of waves and feely feels
Versions of a life surreal

Solace in some words I find
A way to trick my fractured mind
Pretending I’ve found solitude
Screeching seagulls interlude

In crystal skies from youth’s demise
No streaks of white or running clouds
Death was still a stranger then
Before she asked, “Remember when?”

Or some say she’s a he
It doesn’t matter…not at all
Pretending that the water’s blue
When angels know it’s truly black

A trick of light; the sun we lack
Reveals the dark we dread
Sand castles inside our heads
Collapsing with the tides

The moon conspires with gravity
To shift the blame to me
The depths of my depravity
Is born in childhood fantasy

It’s just perspective after all
Excuses, all is lack
It’s more the time of day, you know?
It’s always been this way, and so…

They say the summer never ends
With songs of surfing in the sun
The Beach Boys made it seem so simple
Time flies when we’re having fun

Ocean breezes, crescent boats
Cut the red horizon line
Summer puzzles, bleeding mindscapes
Keeps me listening, still intrigued

Fate at twenty thousand leagues
History, civility
Skimming wishes off the seas
Blue-green mermaid on her knees

Swimming stealthily deep beneath
Coming up to kiss the sky
Licks her lips and winks her eye
Mirrored scales on sparkling thighs

Voices carried on the waves
Dirges for a watery grave
Captured by the siren’s sound
Frequencies of lust profound

Helplessly, I follow,
Leave her kisses on the shore
She said, “Don’t mind the taste, just swallow.”
You’ll long for salty tears once more

There is no death in dreams, I’m sure
But black remains where shadows dwell
And so I float on words you wrote
Sink between the space you leave

Then mark the twain of love’s advance
Trading grace for circumstance
Details are so muddied, dear
But perfect pain is crystal clear

Definitions of a dream
It seems I’ve lingered far too long
Trying to find the boy I was
Lost inside a siren’s song

TM DiSarro
©2025 TM DiSarro/ MindScapes Publishing

For an Instagram Prompt by Glass of Mead & LG
Prompts as follows:

“Muster Point” -LG
“Try to catch a dream upon waking” @wile_ex_mynakedself
“It’s not just the loss, it’s the love without a place to go” @dlwhite_author
“If we could rescue time” @seamusorourke
“What the rain finds is simply an unveiling” @midagedpoetry
“We all have different reasons for forgetting to breathe” @andreagibson