Original Poem: Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes

Last Night I Dreamed of Snakes by Fred Slusher

They were writhing, 

wriggling their way through 

darkened halls & hidden 

crevices. I am a small world 

made large every night.

And the guns, they don’t work. 

My great-grandfather held snakes 

in church, offered them up to God. 

My, how they danced together. 

Strange language, dancing to the beat 

of impending eternity, to a sound only 

they could hear. Holding death that close 

just has to be holy—a desecrated lullaby. 

Some people believe the only way you can 

know God is to prove to him that you’re not 

afraid to die. In the dream, I’m going under

once again. Silence is an art of the most 

hallowed & hollow solemnity. Oh faithless

love, oh desert, oh fracture, oh quake, please  

caress the fear from my windows where 

layers of shadows ensconce me in 

false protections, mirages & mists & secret 

songs taught only in the dark. There is this fear, 

this shroud covering me. There is this sway, 

this truth. There is this serpent slivering its

way out of reach. There is this enormity. 

There is this heresy. There is this 

sorrow. There is this cataclysm 

raining on the living. There is this 

violence that lives in the soul & chokes it 

just so. There is this madness flickering 

like a lit match in a dry barn. There is this 

burning. There is this roof that’s corpsing 

itself into a glorious & effervescent ruin. 

There is this scream that imbibes blood like 

water. 

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