Dream: touched
sparking synapses
manufacture of sleep
meanwhile
I believed
dreams like echoes
sounds stretched
over gaps
I could have sworn
veil of sleepy uncertainty
haze of particular
vividness
sensation definite
your hand, there
three dimensions
and warmth, texture
contact
beyond physical weight
real, illusory, both,
meaning and message
coursing electric
livewire jolting
defying expectation
tapping our code
I turned, asleep, heard
here, now, from
elsewhere
gratitude, and
love, love, love—
gone
and I woke
to empty
wrinkled sheets
alone
***
Carnival:
I and the Bird #16 is up over at Dharma Bums' nest. Your own private Birdstock Festival of Art and Music (including a poem of mine) for those who enjoy birds.
manufacture of sleep
meanwhile
I believed
dreams like echoes
sounds stretched
over gaps
I could have sworn
veil of sleepy uncertainty
haze of particular
vividness
sensation definite
your hand, there
three dimensions
and warmth, texture
contact
beyond physical weight
real, illusory, both,
meaning and message
coursing electric
livewire jolting
defying expectation
tapping our code
I turned, asleep, heard
here, now, from
elsewhere
gratitude, and
love, love, love—
gone
and I woke
to empty
wrinkled sheets
alone
***
Carnival:
I and the Bird #16 is up over at Dharma Bums' nest. Your own private Birdstock Festival of Art and Music (including a poem of mine) for those who enjoy birds.
posted by MB at 9:30 AM
18 Comments:
Oh my! Sublime!
That's all you have to say? You Minimalist! Or, wait... You Romantic! ;-) Sorry, I'm teasing you when I really should be thanking you.
Really, I wasn't sure if this one would work. It took me in a different direction from my usual — more like assembling fragments, which meant finding a kind of balance somewhere, searching for a thread of compositional unity nonetheless.
Friedrich hoy?
Ay, sorry, I found it below. Thank you!
A pillow that bellows! Si? But oh! so softly! I can almost hear the air rushing out from the sides of the pillow cover, breathing, breathing...Life. The weight of a head that determines the pulse of the dream?
Better?
Now, there you go! Air (fire?) and feathers, breath and dreams, weight and weightlessness. Life and not-life, sensation and imagination....which are actually what this poem was about, originally.
Si, mejor, porque me contestas en poesia y me haces sonreir. Gracias.
I found it all so haunting and the last stanza brings it all rushing towards reality, beautiful
Ah, Sue, haunting is the right word. Thank you. As I said to Lhombre, I wasn't at all sure this would work, I'm still not sure. So if it did for you, I'm pleased indeed.
Hola Chica! I've been mulling over some of my thoughts on the "tone" of this poem. It reminds me of a poem that I approached in a way similar to what you describe as the process that helped you bring this one to fruition; which, I repeat,is truly sublime. There are some moments in your poem that cause me to think that you might have an insight into what I was trying to come to terms with in a poem I wrote some months ago. I would be very interested in how you might grasp something I was chasing in that poem that I am referring to. I just reposted it on my "Ink Stain: Memories..." blog. It is entitled "Swimmer." If you have an opportunity I would appreciate your thoughts.
Gracias amiga.
MB,
I like the way the first few stanzas have this quality of getting part way to where they're going and stopping, as elements in dreams do, since they are unbound by the laws and strictures of waking.
I think dreaming and otherwise wandering about in the internal landscapes of our minds is a big deal, and ever-present concern of the poet. Sometimes as real as whole daylight worlds, they are yet ephemeral, dissipating into nothing, as yours did in this poem.
Thanks, Firehawk. You are picking up on a feeling I intentionally tried to create. That hesitational unbalance between disbelief and belief, and the fragmentation that is characteristic of dreams. Your discussion of internal landscapes... (after all, isn't all poetry in essence an expression of the poet's internal landscape, the poet's view & experience & interpretation of that)... makes me think of your "Peripheral Considerations." And this was an attempt to describe a dream that ended abruptly, like a popped bubble. Whereas yours seems more like a waking dream with its more cohesive, ongoing kind of landscape.
Lhombre, si, ya yo lo hice.
While I love this poem, its sensitivity to the other, the tender loving description, the hand, its warmth, so real, but illusory, somehow I wanted more of what surrounds- waking to empty wrinkled sheets alone, but how did one fall asleep? "sparking synapses" as a first line didn't grab me as much as the last lines, and so maybe I wanted bookends in the world, what the context is for the sleeping dreamer, if it was a dream, or was he there? Or maybe just the falling asleep, as there is the waking up, a symmetry to the beauty of love in the night.
Gracias azulejo. Suenos agradables. Mas poemas, por favor.
"voile de l'incertitude somnolente
brume de détail
éclat
sensation définie "
Très belle image ! j'adore ce rêve !
Hey! I agree with jean. What a wonderful comment. I went to his site. Very nice! I hope he will continue to visit.
Brenda, thank you very much. You have helped me identify what was bothering me about this poem - it doesn't tell the whole story. It's a bunch of fragments carefully knit into another fragment, and I was so focused on making sure the fragments in hand worked together, I somehow missed the fact that overall, it is too much of a fragment - even as a composite! Seems so obvious now, how did I miss it? The dream was of a visit from my mother after her death, so you see there is so much more... I'll need to rework it, and - thanks to your nudge - I can see where (though not yet how) I need to go with it. Thank you!
Jean, moi aussi, j'adore la reve, parce que c'etait de ma mere, et j'espere que vous reviendrez souvent. Je suis impressionee par votre facilite avec la langue anglais! J'aime bien regarder votres photos chaque jour - sont vraiment etudies de lumiere et esprit.
Lhombre, estoy feliz! Jean's photos are wonderful studies of light and spirit, and I'm glad you checked them out.
wow, this one is just lovely... bittersweet. it felt fammiliar... like me waking up from a heavenly dream... feeling good about the dream, and at the same time, feeling bad about me waking up.
Luanne, bittersweet is a good word for it. Thanks for your comment.
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