Wednesday, September 2, 2009

All I have to do is dream...

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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