i dreamt a poem for you
I dreamt a poem for you.
The lines were meticulously rhythmical and fluffy.
I explained to you I used a comb to make them line up like so–
If you brush them the words get too riled up and unruly.
I showed this to you at my junior high where
my son was going to join the class of a teacher who
in real life was a bitch
her tests destroyed joy
she looked old when she was young
died of cancer before she got old.
In the dream she was youngest than me
miraculously beautiful and nice
advisor to the school blogging club.
I cannot remember the name of the brown boy
I met who was blogging there after school
who showed me his blog, so peaceful and blue.
Children outside line up for a Halloween parade and open mic.
The parade and open mic are one in the same.
Colorful painted costume boxes they wear serve as stages,
boxes which once housed couches, refrigerators, washer/dryers.
now hold children standing in their boxes, waiting.
Some hold their boxes up around their waists
their fingers lifting them up from underneath.
Some children leave their boxes resting on the ground
surrounding each in a colorful square.
All of the boxes are wildly painted, the children too
in loud colors which some might call garish, clashing.
The children chatter excitedly from their boxes:
moving and whirling they practice their poems.
These boxes do not contain or restrict the children,
but give a framework, a foundation
which they make their own.
The band starts up: tuba, drum, horns.
The parade moves forward.
The blogger boy and I follow along
our open laptops fold on our arms rest around our hips.
c. by Gwendolyn Alley aka Art Predator
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Dream poems are so soft and delicate round the edges. This one has that tone of the dream poem perfectly, the images clear but slightly blurred in meaning. Very coool,
Yes, wonderful images and the sense of the carnival about it.
Colorful painted costume boxes they wear serve as stages, …
The way these boxes appear is dreamlike indeed.
(BTW, I don’t have word verification turned on my blog, so there shouldn’t be a problem there.)
Fact is I generally hate “dream” poems or poems that talk about writing poems. But this trounced all my biases.
It’s funny how some dreams do tend to put people in boxes, in this case each child is in his own theatre of dreams and thriving.
“”If you brush them the words get too riled up and unruly.”
there are repetitions of constants through the whole poem that I really, really like
thanks, Paul, dreams do have that odd ambidetrousness to them–clear yet so fuzzy at the same time
glad, nathan, you could sense the carnival–hard to convey that assault on the senses–the sights, the sounds, compounded by the confusion of dreamtime
hmmn still wondering what the challenge was i had in commenting on your bloog and others the other day, philip but i will try again
yay, renkat, nothing like a little trouncing to make my day!
yes sweet t. guy, life in general prefers people in boxes, and i was so pleased these children were making the most of the conventions which attempt ot frame us
annamari, this was the line, the image, the idea that got me out of bed and to writing. it was just too wild to let go of!