Things lost I get too in dreams, Ken but more often ways lost, being diverted so I am late and getting later for some appointment, often a teaching appointment but the more I try to get on track, the farther I wander. And a dawning acceptance of knowing I won't make it. Papers not written or not submitted I get too. Remembered hallways are only half-remembered and what's at either end of the hallway changes, even the side walls bulge or become intangible. Like the sides of a Murakami well.
Responsibilities. Calling out in the picture theatre is the bit that stayed with me in the Schwartz story. And being evicted and so missing some of the story of his parents' courtship wasn't it? But being returned too and having to pick it up. And the awful inevitabilities.
I like your poem for its chase.
Bill
> On 2 Apr 2014, at 10:20 pm, Kenneth Wolman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Come to in my office chair
>
> 2:40 in the morning
>
> After a dream of failed tasks
>
> exams not given
>
> classes untaught
>
> oh that was a baddie.
>
>
>
> Fall into bed and the dream
>
> is not through with me yet.
>
> It is proctoring an exam in
>
> the cafeteria of my elementary school
>
> papers ungraded
>
> Mr. Wolman what are we to do?
>
>
>
> I do not know I remember
>
> my own work left undone
>
> a dissertation unwritten
>
> chapters to be handed in
>
> I cannot do this
>
> I cannot answer for what I fear
>
> or what I am supposed to do
>
> for them or for myself.
>
>
>
> The same dream, things dropped
>
> cannot be found
>
> cannot be recaptured
>
> a dream of things lost
>
> things that cannot be found
>
> chasing in remembered hallways.
>
>
>
> Ken
>
>
>
> Truly awful dream. Delmore Schwartz was right: in dreams begin
> responsibilities. Horrible. I've not had a "losing dream"-my standard-in
> years, it came back last night. It took me a few minutes to collect myself
> and realize my only call is to myself, from myself. Unrevised except to fix
> Outlook's habit of capitalizing first lines of everything.
>
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