It Came to Me in a Dream

Wedged between one page and the next
were eight hours of sleep
and who knows how many of dreams.

I woke to my head on the pillow,
words everywhere
like gnats.

I grabbed at them
but most darted off
or disintegrated.

Before I pulled back the sheets,
all that I had were a few syllables
and even they

were fighting my grip,
trying to escape.
By the time, I got them

to the computer keyboard,
all I had in my possession
were the odd sound,

one or two letters
and a punctuation mark.
You might think I’d feel defeated.

But really,
on a good day
that’s all it takes.
John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in
That, Dunes Review, Poetry East, and North Dakota Quarterly with work
upcoming in Qwerty, Thin Air, Dalhousie Review, and failbetter.