Given my own little weird dream this morning, which seemed to have something to do with stress but went nowhere special, I could wish to have had one like yours, Lawrence.

I did once read a long & wonderful novel all night long, or so it seemed, but couldnt remember a thing about it when I woke up...

Doug
On 2013-04-01, at 7:29 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 
> 
> 	 I saw the ending of a printed poem. I assumed or felt that I knew
> that the poem was of my authorship. What I could read of it was
> familiar although I would not even have been able to say it back
> without sight of the print, not even those last few lines. 
> 
> 	 I have had a similar experience. Previously, however, I have read
> the poems I hit upon as if I had forgotten them completely so that it
> was as if I were reading them for the first time -- like one whose
> memory has failed on meeting members of close family, perhaps speaking
> of “that woman who is sometimes here”, and, when asked if he means
> his wife, exclaims “Is that who she is?”. 
> 
> 	 I have been impressed by the writing; but, here, as my discovery led
> to responsive authorial plans, the words blurred out of focus in what
> I sought to reread. 
> 
> 	 This poem's ending, that is, its final page, verse lines occupying
> most of it, was huge. It was lying down, perhaps tilted upwards
> slightly, but it must have been seven or eight feet high 
> 
> 	 That did not seem odd to me. It may be that it was part of an
> installation or an especially-made piece of equipment for a
> performance. 
> 
> 	 I began to read. 
> 
> 	 I believe that I read the last line first; and then the penultimate
> line; and so on, upwards; and, in some ways, backwards.This seemed
> entirely appropriate; and I had a strong sense of communicating with
> my audience. Where that audience was located I cannot say. It may have
> been that stage lighting hid them or that distracted me from them. 
> 
> 	 By the time I had reached the top of the page in my reading, I was
> climbing steps which had my words written on them. It was still a page
> and known to be a page but it was perceived by me as being a
> staircase. I cannot say whether the words were written on the flats or
> on the risers. 
> 
> 	 I had been joined by a fellow reader, a female, whom I did not see
> directly. She read well. However, I should say that she was uttering
> words which were visible above the printed text, right-ranged where
> the print was ranged left. I cannot say how they came to be there, or
> visible there; I suspect that they were not inscribed. They may have
> been projected in some way. 
> 
> 	 I think that I too was reading the imposed text then. I hear my
> voice – but not my words – assertive; and hers answering
> interrogatively; and then she, assertive, and me interrogative. Yet it
> was the opposite of interrogation between us. It was a willing
> offering of speech. “Is this what you'd like to hear?” “Does
> that sound good?” “How like you this?” It was good-natured and
> more, the cooperation of intelligent analysis. On reaching the top of
> the page, I found it to be three-dimensional, with a suggestion of a
> corridor, which would have taken us beyond the end of the book,
> whatever that might come to mean: it was a possibility into which I
> could look down or along, depending upon one's choice of referents;
> but I did not look. To my left would have been the page edge and the
> probable means to turn that page and find out what is printed on the
> other side. 
> 
> 	 I wonder now whether we would have had to descend steps of that
> page's lines before continuing reading. The lines might have made a
> narrative sense going downwards. Possibly they could have been
> meaningfully readable contrary to intended order, as with the page
> which we had just finished reading. 
> 
> 	 Would there have been additional text endorsed without printing upon
> the obverse page, if I am right in seeing it as obverse? Why should
> that not be? That page might have risen further from where we now
> stood. If we stood anywhere. Say then: from the point we saw; or the
> point at which we saw. 
> 
> 	 The dream at that particular state dissolved. 
> 
> 	 By then, I think, I was slightly more aware than I had been, more
> aware objectively of my experience; and so the inconsistent logic of
> my fantasy disintegrated. 
> 
> 	 I awoke. I was alone. I had no book. I had no recall of my
> discovered poetry, beyond the recollection that there was or had been
> a discovery. 
> 
> 
> 

Douglas Barbour
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