A Sequence Of Dreams
September 28, 2008The Narrator dreams of Candles, Myths and God
It was dark except for the candles
and I leaned far forward,
my hair falling in shrouds round my face.
I blew out the candle
and it lit more, and each time I leaned to blow
more candles would light
until I began to think of the Hydra myth .
How each head lopped off became two new heads,
maws open and hungry for flesh ,
hungry for the feel of hot blood
running down long necks
and the aftertaste of iron
across questing tongues.
The flames were dancing,
seeming to mock my futile effort
to extinquish them with how they seemed to dance
just beyond my reach,
and how, completely frustrated
with my failure to quench them
I prayed for rain ,and God,
who never agrees with me about anything
and who likes to tell me He does exist;
just not quite like people expect Him to be,
made the clouds gather
and the rising wind made the candle flames
dance even more vigorously.
So I started laughing and laughed
until I started to weep
and each tear put out a candle, sending up little
puffed signals of surrender and defeat,
and the smoke tendrils curled up
and impregnated my hair
and I smelled the beginning and the end.
Two : In Which The Narrator Collects Flower Petals.
I was never the flower girl in any weddings.
I didn’t even pretend to play bride and groom
but the second dream was hidden under a huge wisteria
which dwarfed me to child size
and the petals drifted down
collecting a hint of salt from the near tidal flats
and I started trying to catch them
and even used a butterfly net
but they all would spin away at the very last moment
dashing my hopes
but the air was still full of this thick
scent of wisteria and salt and decayed things
and I knew that I was dead too,
even if I woke up alive, it made no difference
I was dead for a reason, and the wisteria could’ve told
the story and I would’ve been unable to disagree.
Three: The Narrator Is Woken By A Child And Goes Back To Dreaming
A small voice worms into the smell of plants
and says I don’t feel well and
I wake, heart thumping, remembering the certainty of being dead
and terrified that the child will find me gone,
and scream in the beginning of a lifelong trauma :
gasping for water like a fish flopping on the tidal flats at low tide,
the small body clings to me and I hear the thunder of two hearts
in the dark and if I am dead
I am at least able to levitate my corpse into the bathroom
getting water to soothe an aching throat
and forcing my corpse to exhibit tender concern and warm lips
and throwing it all back on the bed
to remember vaguely that moment in drama class
when he asked me after a mime session
if I always threw myself on the bed
that way, feet to to pillow and head
snapping across the foot of the bed
and the answer as I drifted back to sleep was
breathed outward ‘yes…. ye es .
Four : Columbine and Pierrot Appear To Mourn The Death Of The Narrator
They opened all the doors and windows
and the wind God called swept back in
invisible fingers riffling through curtains,
flipping idly through pages of books
moving carefully coiffed hair
and as soon as a door opened, other doors would close
in a perfect parody of choice
when everyone knows the only choice
left to the poor corpse is
Heaven or Hell.
Still dreaming, the narrator realizes
that there will never be sex, either,
which tips the balance mostly towards the Afterlife as Hell.
Pierrot finds the wisteria petals wafted in and covering everything
but the body and whistles to Columbine to gather them
and mound them over the coffin ;
and they dance a parody of sex, pretending to make love
as if psychic, and reading the deads last thoughts.
Five : When Woken, The Narrator Is Bruised And The EMTs Are Called
No one know where the bruises came from,
when we went to bed there wasnt a single mark
and we woke up- bam, it looks like a train wreck
and I the only victim, nothing happened
other than the usual, dreams and children
up in the middle of the night
and I didnt trip or fall or do anything unusual
but my chest feels pinched and my heart is racing.
My left arm is kind of numb
and I can’t get my fingers to move right.
Even as they watch, the bruises fade
and I am left with these two EMTs
who, laughing, grope after the disappearing bruises
and search me from head to foot
to find only more disappearing evidence
and want to use words like stigmata and miracle,
but I still can’t move well enough to fend them off
and there are two of them and one of me anyway
so I can’t really say there was much of a fight
and I remembered the dream in which I knew I was dead
even if I woke up so I relaxed and remembered too
that if I was dead there wouldnt be sex
but it looked and felt and smelt like sex
and I concluded that I was alive after all.
Six: The Therapist, at Coffee
is vaguely stunned, suggesting mildly
and half humorously
a switch to decaf, before asking
why the rape was after the dream of
death, and we discuss escalation
and fear and how it all seems so very remote
when the sun shines and the air
still smells so sweetly of wisteria
and how strong he actually thinks
I must be, to have passed through
and over and beyond
even half of what really happened.
I shrug, yawning.