Dream/Jimmy Silva

I just woke up

from this eerie dream.

There was a soccer pitch

upon which I tried 

to put together a game

of pick-up football.

The people milling about

were diffuse and mumbling.

It was hard 

to get a good look 

at any one of them.

I cussed about the fog

and realized it was clear,

they were clouded.

These people

seemed quite diverse,

not only in where they came from

but when they came from.

They spoke in rivers of babble.

After a few failed attempts 

to throw the football,

they all moved off the pitch

down a narrow road

towards an old hotel.

Okay, I'll follow.

The hotel was laid out 

in a quadrant of buildings

all overlooking 

a manicured lawn.

At one corner,

between the once stately

white columned structures

was a gaping mouth 

to a tree tunnnel.

Without anyone specifically

mentioning it

I knew we were there 

to look for a little girl.

I followed an inuit guy around

as he moved through the suites,

then a hippie woman wearing a sari

and finally went down to the lawn

behind a brush pilot type 

smoking unfiltered Lucky Strikes.

On the lawn

I could see down the tree tunnel.

The oaks that composed it were 

hundreds of stories high.

Christ, how'd I not notice that?

Drawing up to the mouth

I looked down it's leafy throat

and got deep shivers 

of weird electricity.

Something primal inside me

was urging me away 

from this path.

Turning around

I noticed the lawn had filled up

with these faded folk

all milling about

like a garden party 

of somnambulists.

A great murmur 

came from the tree tunnel

and I began to see people 

trickling forth on to the lawn.

The little girl had been found

in one of the rooms.

How the hell do I know that

when nobody here talks to me?

Somehow I knew her name.

I'd heard it mentioned on television.

She lived in the southeast.

Not anymore.

At that point,

I had a very strong feeling

I was about to see an old friend

coming out of that tree tunnel.

He hasn't been around 

since that night,

December 23, 1994.

Jimmy's gonna show up here

among these flickering souls.

That's when I woke up

tingling from head to toe.

I just missed you Mr. Silva

but I sing your songs 

each passing day.