Don’t let me sleep too long

 

Don’t let me sleep too long.
If I leave my bed for more than a few hours
I come back jet-lagged
and sometimes with bruises and bite marks
I didn’t get in the world where I left my body.

When the body sleeps the soul travels
and it does not go naked.
It makes its excursions in a subtle form
whose adventures and misadventures
can leave astral stigmata.

In a cold land near the Northern Lights
woman preparing corpses for the funeral pyre
place moss on their tongues and caw like ravens
to scare away hungry ghosts
that gobble spirit bodies like chitlins.

If you are drinking pour a little for the thirsty dead
because the subtle body is also a body of desire.
Out there, you’ll learn that to go beyond the Moon
you must leave your astral body behind. Make sure
you put it in a locker where thieves can’t take it.

It’s late and my double is eager to go wandering.
It could come out through my toes
or through my groin, or my core.
It could fly from my mouth or rise from the fontanel -
the right way, says the yogi, to go out at death. 

Leaving my body tonight, I don’t plan
more than a temporary death.
I might go to the mermaid cove
or the island of apples or a tower in the clouds
but I’ll be back unless you let me sleep too long.

- Robert Moss

Drawing: "Autoscopy" by Robert Moss