And then? I woke up. The poem is based on a real dream.
Perhaps the dream will continue tonight, as sometimes happens.
Janet
On 06/02/2008, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> And then? A very convincingly-real dream with ominousness of uncertain
> intensity...
>
>
> On 6/2/08 5:10 PM, "Janet Jackson" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Posted too soon! When I started to read it out loud it rapidly morphed
> into
> > the following.
> >
> > The space
> >
> >
> > It's midnight in Dream city again,
> > with its dark derelict house-rows,
> > dubious kitchens, tables for two,
> > corner bars. Where are the friends I seek?
> >
> > Not in that bar -- that's all folk music.
> > I drop off my mother there. You'll like this, I say.
> > I drop her off and walk alone
> > past people who no longer scare me
> > now that I've dropped her off.
> >
> > I walk a couple of blocks of my dream-streets
> > to another bar. Setanta Sports, Guinness,
> > small, low, grotty.
> > My friends are there. They say hello.
> > They sit and stand around the room.
> > They are leaving a space for someone
> > who should be there, but has been lost.
> >
> > I get a beer, sit by the wall. I'm next to the space.
> > I listen to their talk.
> > A senior man storytells, standing up,
> > projecting his voice over the heads of the gathering.
> > I hear him but his words don't touch me.
> > I sit with my beer, quietly breathing, next to the space.
> >
> > In walks an old colleague of mine, someone from reality.
> > He used to have curly red hair and a big horsey mouth.
> > Now his hair is wispy grey and his face has shrivelled.
> > But I can say his name. He stands in front of me
> > and tries to guess who I am.
> > But he doesn't know me without my mother.
> >
> > I don't tell him. He keeps asking.
> > I hear him but his words don't touch me.
> > I hear him but his words don't touch me.
> > I sit with my beer, quietly breathing, next to the space.
> >
> >
>
> --
>
--
Janet Jackson
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www.proximity.webhop.net
www.myspace.com/poetjj
Perth Poets: groups.yahoo.com/group/thelinemine
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