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View Full Version : dream sequence #59 - flight plan



just mercedes
07-04-2009, 07:40 PM
I'd love to get some feedback on this, inspired by Lorca's Arbol, Arbol and a sleepless night of dreams


drifting on the porous borderline
between different clarities of being;
ah claro! awake and dreaming

the decisive factor is to fully engage
this story will take place beneath
the most spacious of skies
mostly at night

trucks will continue to pass along the highway
illegal refugees will remain crouched in steel containers
unable to see castle’s silhouettes
on the dark horizon

wrong image – a night of love in a castle
is out of the question here
let’s see – factories, then
on the way to a harbour port
on a river

Plato’s pool
where shadows of water boatmen
row on a riverbed
over mosaics of stones

that’s better, but it’s too easy
to dissolve into water

safe in port, we’ll sail with the moon
under a Panamanian flag;
there’s time for a final drink in the tavern

where three pierrots in dominoes
tumble agile gymnastics
while a fourth picks pockets

oh, where is this dream going?
has it run away with the circus? can I be
the strong, the bearded lady now?

John and Yoko float by; music
from their big wide white bed claims
all you need is love
for everything else there’s amex

silver minnows of memory
seek sanctuary in deeper waters
become mercury walls
where young presidents are sausages
and down it all falls

junk dogs howl mean
at the midnight special express
no let down
no pick up
until the border

everyone prepares to be checked
some ingest illegal substances
others wash and comb, tidy and brush
some try to memorize the place-name of their birth

and sparrows explode from bare hedgerows
at even the thought of cat
in a place that once was Macedonia

we are here selling toys because war is imminent
or for a whiteware convention
I don’t recognize the face in my passport
in fact I’m sure all the details are wrong
I’m thirsty

the mirror wedged above the basin
reflects mountains, or is a painting
I burned in Australia a decade ago

peering closely, I can see myself on Blaze
halfway up the Great Wall, with eagles soaring below us

I’m heading west on the old pilgrim’s road –
why do you look at me in the Balkan courtyard
as if you still missed something? why is the fountain?

a single armed soldier comes by
in uniform but without a cap
hair tousled, face flushed
bums a cigarette and rushes off
perhaps searching for his unit

when you hear your footsteps on a dark road at night
do you know by their sound where you are?


I hear sand
squeak like dry snow, frozen grasses snap like twigs
up here above the tree line. luckily a rough track
of white-painted boulders shines against the grey
of rock and night, and shows the way.
someone has been here before me.
on top, land falls away in all directions.
I am thrust into the sky,
the grey arm of wind about my waist.
intent, I step out into it. I fly.

qimissung
07-04-2009, 09:47 PM
I think you handle the dreamlike motif very well. The poem remains accessible, while maintaining it's mood of mystery.

paperleaves
07-06-2009, 09:15 AM
"John and Yoko float by; music
from their big wide white bed claims
all you need is love
for everything else there’s amex"

I love this. the rest of the poem wisps me away like a dream...

PrinceMyshkin
07-06-2009, 10:51 AM
An amazing poem! At once a drama and a reverie, with just the occasional buckshot of humour - the three parrots, the reference to Amex - that highlights by contrast the solemnity of all the rest.

Although everything here works and contributes, I was especially moved by the lines about identifying where one is by the sound of one's footsteps.

just mercedes
07-07-2009, 09:07 PM
Thank you all for reading - I'm reciting this poem at an open mic session tonight - very nervous!

Red-Headed
07-07-2009, 09:30 PM
Good luck!:thumbs_up

PrinceMyshkin
07-08-2009, 07:51 AM
Thank you all for reading - I'm reciting this poem at an open mic session tonight - very nervous!

When one is nervous one tends to recite more quickly, tp get it over with, but remember that your listeners need time to absorb the complexities as well as the music of a poem so as much as you can try to read in a deliberate, fairly slow pace.

Good luck and let us know how it went.

paperleaves
07-08-2009, 01:21 PM
I know this post is late, but record yourself when you read at open-mic night!!!! I would love to put a voice with these words.

just mercedes
07-14-2009, 11:28 PM
Thanks again - I was filmed at the session, now trying to get hold of the vid. My accent is NZ/Australian though...you may find it odd!

~Sophia~
07-14-2009, 11:45 PM
I hope your reading went fabulously well! I must say I was slack jawed reading this poem. I don't normally like long works but yours kept me on the edge all the way through! Beautiful.

firefangled
07-15-2009, 09:54 AM
Amazing! I have been missing a lot I see. I hope you can share the video of the reading. I read it out loud and the sounds and rhythm are fantastic. It's like being on a dream train looking out the window as all this goes by.

I love the way this moves from the first line to the last, truly dreamlike and very real at the same time