Invocation

Oh Dionysus!

I have always fought sleep, 

for consciousness does not discriminate

between sleep and death

but now unconsciousness is all

I have the strength to call for.

This careworn mind is fraying.

Unraveling also my desire

to ride the crests,

the restless, heaving tides 

of multitudinous meanings

and polyphonies 

the seas of language provides.

Guide me instead to the coolness

of your twilight vineyards,

beneath the penumbral leaves

and sugar-sweet and swollen droops

to compose and drowse at my will.

In the absence of sleep,

the waking dream will sustain me.

For many nights, after sipping your dark fruits

failed to send me to the inebriate’s rest,

I threw my restless body out into

the ocean of night and sacrificed caution

swimming with any strangers I could find.

Now, old and isolate, a dram still comforts,

and may loosen my tongue,

but these seeds find no fertile purchase,

and many ears remain ringing or deaf,

and the comfort of strangeness is gone,

while the familiar often stifles.

Guard your souls against the same.

Dionysus! Once again, I invoke your name.

Awaken in me!

Awaken!