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Thread: dream sequence #59 - flight plan

  1. #1
    Registered User just mercedes's Avatar
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    dream sequence #59 - flight plan

    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.

  2. #2
    All are at the crossroads qimissung's Avatar
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    I think you handle the dreamlike motif very well. The poem remains accessible, while maintaining it's mood of mystery.
    "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its' own reason for existing." ~ Albert Einstein
    "Remember, no matter where you go, there you are." Buckaroo Bonzai
    "Some people say I done alright for a girl." Melanie Safka

  3. #3
    Registered User paperleaves's Avatar
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    "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...
    "real
    loneliness
    is not
    necessarily
    limited to
    when
    you are
    alone
    "
    -C. Bukowski

  4. #4
    Something's gotta give PrinceMyshkin's Avatar
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    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.

  5. #5
    Registered User just mercedes's Avatar
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    Thank you all for reading - I'm reciting this poem at an open mic session tonight - very nervous!

  6. #6
    Registered User Red-Headed's Avatar
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    Good luck!
    docendo discimus

  7. #7
    Something's gotta give PrinceMyshkin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by just mercedes View Post
    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.

  8. #8
    Registered User paperleaves's Avatar
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    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.
    "real
    loneliness
    is not
    necessarily
    limited to
    when
    you are
    alone
    "
    -C. Bukowski

  9. #9
    Registered User just mercedes's Avatar
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    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!

  10. #10
    chercheur ~Sophia~'s Avatar
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    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.

  11. #11
    feathers firefangled's Avatar
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    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

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