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Dangerous Dreams
Dangerous Dreams #1
I sleep and it rains, always.
Dreams become muddy puddles
along a railway station with no trains.
I stand there, waiting in the glass
rain, shifting the weight
from one foot to the other, thick shoes
stuck to the ground.
The ticket clerk checks the few daisies,
obliterates them: last passengers of Spring.
He has nothing else to do, refuses to validate
my ticket where my fingers have blurred
the destination. In my sleep I am still there, 40 years later,
sitting in a roofless waiting room, white hair
and an empty nest on top. I sleep but pinch
my lips, my nose to wake up. I know
the man will soon come with a sharpened pencil,
will draw a circle, drive it into my right eye.
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I like this poem and the whole idea of the dreamer knowing what's coming and trying to stop it from outside the dream, from the bed.
And I like:
The ticket clerk checks the few daisies,
obliterates them: last passengers of Spring.
Nicely hints at what's to come.
Posted by: Rob | September 24, 2005 at 12:20 PM
Posted by: Paula | September 25, 2005 at 11:55 AM
Oh what a frightening dream, with a nasty climax.
Good poem (shudder).
Posted by: Shisa | September 25, 2005 at 12:59 PM
LOL, Shister, I warned you...with the title.
Posted by: Paula | September 25, 2005 at 11:35 PM
Haunting & full of the authority & senseless violence of the dream. I'm looking forward to more in the series.
Posted by: Dick | October 02, 2005 at 02:31 PM
Thank you, Dick. How are things going?
Posted by: Paula | October 03, 2005 at 01:02 AM
Surreal--as dreams must be. The last line is as good as the first, and they're both terrific.
Posted by: Carol | October 05, 2005 at 06:06 PM
Thanks, Carol:-)
Posted by: Paula | October 06, 2005 at 05:52 AM
March 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Dangerous Dreams #3
Quick Polish
She looks from one hand holding a white cloth
to the other on the Mop&Duster tin.
Instructions shout in gold : Pulidor Quita Polvo -
Elimina Polvere - Nettoyant Dépousslérant.
That easy, she thinks, while her eyes scurry
from shelf to shelf where books and photos wear
a veil blurring features inside frames, dimming names.
She picks a photo and a swirl of specks soars and falls down
unevenly. Smiles break through the glass as she softly drags
the cloth over familiar faces. A wedding photo with her
in green chiffon and him, in grey suit. The dance of smiles
has lost it steps, grey spots warp the mouths.
Covered with clouds of the present, she sprays duster,
wipes, polishes till the smiles float back to her,
shine when the light from the window whitens the worn out
background. She sees the spirals
of dust-specks rise -- each a dead cell
that has lost its nucleus--a congregation of defeated
skin that departs from nerves, veins, muscles. Underneath,
new, thin tissues wiggle.
October 09, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Dangerous Dream
Dangerous Dream #2
The sun sets and windows wake up with luminous
smiles and expectations.
In the suburbs, fathers enter home, cast a distracted kiss
to the sleeping children, wash their hands, rub
frustration from the blackened nails.
At that same hour, Jesus glides down
the gilded cross. Disguised in a farmer hat,
his hands still bleeding, he knocks at each door
an leaves a pamphlet on the other Kingdom.
September 24, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Camouflaging
I do not often remember my dreams, but when I do ( usually nighmarish), I write them down and then try to interpret them; it's not exact I try to see how they dissolve the boundaries of normality or, as in Professor S.Greenfield's view, "the ties between dreams and madness are closer than we may wish to accept".
The light was soft and formed a cone in the center of the room when I entered. No idea
what room or house it was though I felt I knew it. There, in the cone of light, the man
who had been so important in my life, sat, cross legged. The body was one my eyes and hands
knew: long limbs, elegant shape of the chest, tanned skin. But the face, the face was not one I recalled. It seemed the head of a ninety-year-old glued on the bust of a young adult. I walked backward yet advanced and was staring into the dark orbits set on top of a cheekless round drooping down to a two-toothed smile. The voice was not a voice but a sax with many mouths around. A sax-vase when blades of grass started to grow, a sax-face with melodies streaming from the nostrils and eyes. The smell of mud was unbearable. I couldn't move, couldn't lift my feet from the soft ground. The moon broke through the roof, went metal and, eventually, crashed: a shield of gold with the face of a clock and my feet stuck on three o'clock.
September 16, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Poetry as Lust...
..continuation
How to explain, then, the attraction, the true lust we experience for words, the manipulation of language, the irresistible, need to touch it, read it, write it, forge, bend, breathe it?
I have been living this lusty relationship with poetry for more than 15 years and had never explored the reasons.
Very often you can't rationalize why you fall in love with someone. Less with poetry. Realistically, you see the flaws, the deficiencies ( especially in what you write), but simply can't help it.
In the first period it is frenzy, the kamasutra of poetry: the research for refined kissing rhymes in a sonnet; the contortions of the ghazal, the free fall headlong of short lines without punctuation, couplets and triplets, villanelle and ode. Nothing is left unexperienced, very often with awful results but, heck, how can you deny anything to such a passionate lover?
With time, the structure of the relationship gets clearer definitions; the passion is still present and strong, but you find some "positions" more suitable and adopt them. What matters is the daily dose of words, the scribbling of lines on a notepad, an image written down on a napkin at the restaurant, the early rise because during sleep a lusty caress stirred your brain.
Oh, I forgot to name that after the kamasutra phase, there comes another, not less frantic: the sending out phase. The sending out at first indiscriminate: to every review and everywhere; then more accurate, selective and sensible, then..I'll send tomorrow and tomorrow and...
Even though the high pitched moments start to deflate a bit, you still experience, daily, this mental bond and the need.
You'll wonder whether there is any critical attitude toward the offsprings of this lust. Yes, very critical; you are aware that in 15 years you have accumulated a lot of crap and some nice moments. Criticism doesn't lessen the love, though.
You'll notice how repetitive your lover's images are, how boring its snoring consonants can be. Yet, when you open your eyes, pen or keyboard yield to its alluring call.
This went on, as said above, for more than 15 years; the deflating of lustful lust stated deviously: not a daily pen-paper or keyboard touch every day; images discarded as plain; lines that dragged, stumbled and crashed in the wastepaper basket, or simply clicking: Delete. No Save As; No Save at all. I looked at the poetry's face and saw it gray and tired.When I touched it, it shrank away.
What can one do when the lover of a lifetime erects a barrier of IF, BUT, MAYBE, LATER, NO.
Though comforted by past lovers ( drawing and digital painting) and cheered up by a new friend: photography, I felt betrayed, missed the words, kept watching images and tried to translate them and their impact into poetry. At times this now elusive lover came back for one day or some hours and the elation was the same as in the past, but brief, too brief.
I needed daily elation, the one I was used to.
After long months of wavering, my lover is back. It doesn't promise anything: neither masterpieces nor memorable lines ( to be honest it never did); just a long, lustful, lasting embrace.
I have concluded that paper and pens ( if insisted upon, keyboard, too) can produce Phenylethylamine
September 05, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (8)
Thanks, Rob. Writing a new series called, in fact, Dangerous Dreams. We'll see what comes from it:-)