I am posting some dream poems today. Dreams are such a wonderfully rich source for writers and artists. (I was recently taking some medication for my stomach which really disrupted my sleep pattern. I had to quit taking it because I couldn't seem to dream anymore!)
My students are always interested to learn about lucid dreaming. If you are not familiar with this, it is a dream state wherein you realize that you are asleep and dreaming. At that point you can control your dreams to solve problems, create things, etc. One of the best ways I have discovered to induce a lucid dreaming state is to look at your hands just before you go to sleep at night. Our hands are in front of us all day every day--writing, eating, gesturing--always right there in front of us. When you look at your hands, tell yourself, "When I see my hands in my dream, I will not wake up but will realize that I am asleep and at that point I will be able to control my dream." It really works. When you get good at it, you can introduce dream characters. You can talk to them, ask them questions. I realize this is just a way to tap into your subconscious mind, but it can be very effective.
ONE O FIVE
I am with you in my sleep
and we are walking
up a steeply twisting trail. I dream
you want to touch me, but the light is too dim.
Being lit from within could be such a subtle technique,
but here I lie, only shadowed by this covering of skin.
From the distance comes the cadence
of a droning makeshift craft. Dim
repeated, rootless moanings.
Insistent insects tug by the millions.
Each inch of skin begins to shimmy.
Every triangle and crosshatch of lines
becomes a map to guide you on. Within the mystery
of that dark humming, beyond the edges of my skin,
the lessening distance of that steady thrumming
pushes me toward the edge.
Most struggles do not require an audience.
Like it or not, I am the fire.
And when the fade comes, I will go,
singing wonder, full-throated and without remorse.
Like it or not, I will go, declaring glory,
crying out, in an airless, rhymeless, nonbeliever’s voice.
GRIMALKIN’S MAGIC
So, you came to me last night
in a strange dream with a strange cat.
One of you, with your smooth mouth
and pale eyes, with just the slightest hesitation,
gentled me, repeatedly.
One of you
settled
in a curl of heat around my shoulders
so deliberately.
There was a garden
and it seems
you played a
banjo…
The song remains.
TEARING ALONG THESE DOTTED LINES
Deliberately and exactly,
when I dream of satisfaction, it fills me
as completely as an airbag fills the space
between the dreamer’s face and a disastrous dash.
Just last night I dreamt seduction.
Behind my eyes the swirling cavity
was packed with words, with blazing
actions and intentions, lines and spaces
specked with half-notes destined never to be sound.
When at last the music woke me,
I was succinctly bound
between approaching traffic
and the blaring horns of diving maidens.
I note the beat, the vague instructions
you have given me to play this fugue:
More finite than amorphous masses,
less definite than round.
THE TROUBLE WITH DREAMS
In my last dream last night I was headed home,
having had sex twice without waking,
when my car stalled on the familiar farm-to-market.
Two big men held a bigger yellow banner
with the unframed question, “Agent Arquaro?”
Not me, but I didn’t exactly feel safe
with my windows down and my doors unlocked,
so I pretended to be as dead as a marzipan woman
until they eventually lost interest.
Having dreamt you twice last night,
I was sure it was you who leaned your smile
against my knees, but when I searched nearby,
I found no elegant sweep of thigh,
no blinding light, or reliable
heat-seeking hands, just crumpled sheets.
The trouble with dreams, it seems, is the way they come to us
like centipedes, segmented and determined to climb.
We read their lines as wistful poems,
and waste our vision powers counting feet.
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