The Wandering Dream to the Waking Man

[RiverNotch]

Point by point:
The punctuation is terrible, yes, especially on the changes from one category of list to another. That sudden burst of romantic self-indulgence is just something I'm too in love with to really gut. 
General point:
I agree on the surfeit of lampreys bit for some of the metaphors (especially the second stanza on the ship being adorned by gore, and the latter stanza on it being adorned by flowers; also, on the fourth stanza being rapid-fire, and the fifth stanza having a neat but confusing image on the last sentence) and on a lot of the listing not fitting the poem very well (however much I love listing as a device, for this poem, it's damaging to the nature of the language). That said, I might need some clarification on what you mean, for the whole of the poem, by the metaphors being mixed -- some of the heavy metaphors, such as the foot-wounds of the sixth (though the word "scars" there might be a bit of a hurdle, and again, the list is awkwardly set), the dark imagery of the first, and the golden gifts of the penultimate, I think blend rather well, since the images themselves, at least in my mind, don't conflict.
Anyway, here's a go at cleaning up the structure and tightening the metaphors. Title, for now, is still "The Wandering Dream to the Waking Man".

REVISION ONE: (spoiler'd for brevity's sake)

On roads paved with the corpses of friends,
we walked, out of the black wilderness
with knife-branched trees and ash-covered soil,
for the little township rising from the mouth
of the river Lethe, the river of oblivion.

Here we are. I remember, on this long journey,
you were the stone on which my flames of passion bloomed,
guarding my halls of mud bricks and olive twigs
from the hot hands of my temper, my lust.
My steady companion, you twined your tender voice 
around my paeans in perfect harmony,
and, on reaching three-headed roads, 
you tried each path and ever returned 
with a map and lamp in hand.
You were a good friend.


But you can share my load no longer
and all your dreaming days are done.
You miss your home's eternal night,
where your slits of eyes shine brighter than the stars
and your tender frame is ever cradled 
warmly by the rosy hands of dawn.
And my two feet can never stop:
my soles are full of holes, never-healing ulcers
made by the edge of the gadfly's knife
and filled by the hands of greedy time
with the sharp stones along the Lethe's banks.
Their only cure is a gift of nectar and ambrosia
to be found far in the east, on the other side of the world,
beyond the kingdoms of the Persians and the Indians
and the old man of the sea.


So now, I leave you waiting at the township's docks,
waiting for a well-sealed ship of grey birch
adorned with asphodels, poppy-pods, 
flecks of hyacinthus, touches of adonis,
and the plain white of horns, tusks, and antlers.
I give you three golden gifts for the long journey ahead:
three tender kisses firmly planted on your lips,
flowing through your mouth and tongue and throat
to your heart. May they sustain you.


And now, the grey ship arrives, and I can hear its brazen bells
ring to the songs of sylphs and seagulls circling 
round its silver sail. The time for you to pass away
and the time for me to be forgotten comes.
Goodbye, friend.