Dream poems since just before October 7

Late September 2023, 4 am

Climbing the Hill, and Divine Descent

Text of a photo-white

overexposed dream – some

kind of divine descent.

Love has never been free.

Dissent:

Love has always been free:

Photo of me and J

upside down and sideways

climbing the hill 4 times.

______________________________

Late September 2023, 3:20 am

Memory’s History

Memory’s life

going backward

as memory

______________________________

Late September 2023, 4 am

Philosophies

Dad philosophy,

expressed by 2-word pithy

statement (re: dreaming?) Like:

“Be Here and Say the Words”.

Me and N (+ ?) favor

less severe decree. Like:

“I’m OK.  You’re OK”.

______________________________

Sukkot Sept 30, 2023 at 3:10 am

Onklos of The Olympic Times

Onklos is publisher/editor of The Olympic Times, written in ancient Greek.

It’s never been printed on newsprint, or read by anyone as a daily paper.

Instead it’s published directly to archival digital microfilm; almost nobody reads that, either.

But Onklos edits it carefully every day, as if someone will read it.

Actually, someone does read it.

Onklos does.

______________________________

Sukkot Sept 30, 2023 at 3 am

Cavalry of Unicycles  

A fifth wheel.

A cavalry of unicycles

made only of fifth wheels.

Foreign correspondent

at home, living the life

of an arm-chair-travel

foreign correspondent.

______________________________

Sept Oct 8/23, 2 am

Girl’s names

Girls’ names. Line line line line

Lines and lines of girl’s names.

Each girl a holy I,

girlfriend of distinction

friend holy synod who

we both knew each other

______________________________

Sept Oct 10/23, 2 am

K’s Mountain Message

K = Momentum

Equal equal equal

Equal of the Alpine

messages we recite.

Rays from a light source shine

down on capital K.

Line line line line of

text =  Alpine message.

______________________________

October 11, 2023, 4 am

Wombats of Sorrow

3D crosswords

wombats of sorrow

______________________________

end of October 2023, 3 am

Planetary Head

Circle roughly complete –

it’s our human planet.

Or it’s a human head?

From the crown of its head

emerge two northern poles,

antennae on alien spacesuit’s round helmet.

Orbiting round the planet – or is it the head? –

circle of dotted lines, indicating motion,

satellites over seas,

‘round planetary head.

Did you know that the vast

planetary ocean

in each human head is

sixty percent water?

And the dotted lines, the dashes and the dots, the

little inky marks a pen can make on paper

could be semaphore code.

I could be the reincarnation of Mark Twain,

tapping away on my telegraph key across

my railroad trilogy.

Years later, aboard a

steamboat up the Mississippi from New Orleans,

write down from memory

all those semaphore telegraphic messages.

______________________________

end of October 2023, 2 am

Community or Commitment

Standoffishness isn’t part of the furniture,

isn’t part of the mechanism

of community or commitment.

But one does as one wills,

in freeform distraction

and willful disregard

of high powers at play.

The feeling that there is,

after all, a Universal Intelligence.

______________________________

Nov 13/23, 3:10 am   

Eyn Lanu Sof – We are eternal

In dream, wake up and say:

the response to the war is the current song.

But later I am, or am not, the artist.

But later, I am the editor.

______________________________

15 Dec ’23, 2 am

Exam Nightmare

Recollection of a dream: high school for adults, end of year, exams to write to complete your diploma, so it’s important. But – and here my template exam nightmare begins – I can’t find the classroom. And then I somehow do find the classroom, but almost everybody’s gone off, and there’s complicated, unclear and hard-to-read instructions as to where the exam is now being held. And then – also! – “All outstanding weekly lab reports – if you haven’t already sent them in”  which I hadn’t – “please submit them all now.” Oh no! I can’t possibly write 24 weekly lab reports and send them in. It’s impossible. And then I realize: I already got a BA and a law degree, 33 years of practice as a lawyer, so actually, now, when I’m having this dream, I don’t need to take any more exams, because so what if I don’t have a high school diploma?

______________________________

Dec 16, 2023, 3:10 am

War Zone Calling Card

We came to the war zone –

a very tame part of  the war zone – with a card.

There’s four lines on each card;

we edit last line to

make it more sensitive.

______________________________

Dec 19, 2023, 3 am

Song of Redemption

Youngest son (of Beatles?)

protests by singing song

protests about the redemption of the first born,

by singing a song (by the Beatles?)

about redemption of the first born?

Happy to oblige but –

happy-angry! Is it:

“O-bla-di, O-bla-da”, sung in a minor key?

Or “Mother Nature’s Only Son”?

Or “Hey Bulldog”?

What if it is your kid, kidnapped and captive in a glass vault underground?

What if it is also your kid singing that song?

A song you composed for a different occasion,

not death of your child but

binding an ancestor,

the only son you love.

Could be Isaac. Could be Jesus. And another

son’s fighting to free him?

______________________________

Jan 9/24, 3:30 am

Idea for a Series

They’re different types [sliced potato vs hot dog).

They get into a fight over a girl both love.

Both get thrown into jail.

Dafka cooperate to get out together.

They live in a carrying case, like Hot Wheels cars.

And there are stories, for example: Episode:

they run out of money

in their division, come up with a novel way

to make lots, win the day.

Or: threat to combine with another division

and lose their unique quality. But

they figure out how to save the day.

______________________________

Feb 10/24, 3:20 am

Pedal path strewn with petals.

3-storey British-style London 1930s brick building along a curved road, like Davenport.

Only 3 storeys. But it seemed like 7 stories.

______________________________

Our Little Corner of the Universe

Above the date, insistently doodled, circles representing heavenly bodies, like moons or planets, with rings around them, crescent moons and Saturns, or sketches of washers in motion, or cars with their tires, and visors on spacesuit helmets, and a solar flare emerging from the strong sun’s nuclear light source at the centre of

our little corner of the universe.

______________________________

Feb 13/24, 4 am

Steep Autumn Road

In Florida

Lorne is a midget

boats in harbor, spread out

going down a steep hill

it’s like 90° to an autumn road, but: OK.

______________________________

Feb 14, 2024, 4 am

Lombardo and Watt

Mr. Lombardo, architect of cottage;

Watt, his daughter, is in love.

Tony Padroni

Tony Padroni and the myth of the neighborhood’s founding

put up by an Italian as if he

______________________________

Feb 16, 2024, 3:12 am

Art Titles to Photo Snapshots

Formal art titles to photo snapshots, as if for paintings by Great Masters.

Photo title: At the Inauguration of King Charles the Third.

Sign on the Door

Sign on door to K’s room,

in big sloppy letters,

as if written in dark,

with lipstick on torn page:

“We had a good time

pls don’t wake us up early.”

______________________________

Feb 18, ’24, 3 am

Yes and No Questions

Always yes and no questions,

yes and no answers.

yes and no questions,

as we mop up after high winds off the gulf

wipe out from my 3:00 AM-wake-up mind

the dream I had, vivid and real,

yes [and no crossed out], yes.

______________________________

Feb 20/24, 2:10 am

Train

All aboard The Lithuanian.

No one need fear being Lithuanian again.

Blue paint in one’s blue blood veins

while forced on the train.

______________________________

Mar 2/24, 2:30 am

Those Who Overcome

Looking for the street: המתגברים “those who overcome”.

I’ve looked at overcome from Both Sides Now.

A female cousin is angry at me

______________________________

March 11/24, 3:10 am

Dream Analysis

Objects in mirror appear closer.

It’s like that.

Except it’s not the rear-view mirror of your car,

but the 360° windows of your soul;

and it’s not closer,

but greater;

and it’s not just objects,

it’s everything.

______________________________

March 12/24, 3:20 am

Necessary Dream Poems

The bough of the tree is

smile of the evergreen,

planted on stairs’ landing.

Small, curved bough of the tree,

circling round the landing,

is a forelock on the smile’s forehead

and it needs to be trimmed, depending

on the circumcisions.

The small evergreen on the landing is the poem

of the staircase from the entrance to the second-floor hall, where the phone rings.

On the flight up the stairs,

I call the smiling tree

a necessary poem.