Sunday, November 8, 2009

dream poem? needs work

I'm a crooked tooth without you.
A field sown in crazed rows.
Livid and sleepless.
Unwilling to dream my own dreams
I would sue at the gates of yours for entry.
You told me you dreamed for seven nights once
you were carrying a rucksack to the sea.
With each step it grew heavier
until suddenly it was a woman singing
the madrigals of Gabrieli.
Around you men dissassembled the hills in great sheaves
and carried them away towards the sea. All the while
“The Chorus of the Phoenicians” rang in your ears.
I would wait for you at the end of the long march.
The men carrying sheaves
would arrive, singing marvelously,
while the sky an upturned bowl of black apples
waited crowded and impure for you
and I too at the sea's brine-soaked shoulder.
At your arrival the least of men would cry his approval,
but even these crude shouts I could not understand,
even these weeping welcomes. You are sleeping away in the world
with no disquiet of shared dreams. I cannot speak this language.
Ill and pale I go about
letting the pin-rain soak me and hungering for sleep.

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