8/22/22
Dreams are the blueprint
for life’s emerging story.
Each frame a promise.
Tag Archives: dreams
KENTUCKY
Kentucky sits down pen in hand.
Words tumble unkempt as she
undressed yet and hungry
not simply to be fed
after arising from her bed
with food and drink
but, with vowels and consonants
in constant need to create meaning
from nightmares and dreams
of words which stream
like Kentucky’s flood
destroying all in its wake
as her words awake and beg
to live above the waterline.
The dreams may drown
but Kentucky’s words live on
battered senseless by the weight
of rushing water tossing them around
until they come to rest upon this page.
Kentucky will dry in these words.
Kentucky will survive in these words.
Kentucky is not gone in these words
but, simply moving on to better days ahead
as she rises again from her nightmare-tossed bed.
Kentucky pulls her blanket of dreams
about her trembling form
determined to rise above and move on
to dry land, where the ink has dried.
Filed under POETRY
PATTERNS ET.AL.
PATTERNS
Patterns tell stories
usually hidden from view.
Each morning I rise
and pick up my pen,
put it to paper
to see what thoughts
descend.
Today, a series of thoughts
seem attuned to one another.
Four poems gathered
but refused to do more
than make me yearn
for words to return
and tell a story
to help me learn
something.
Anything.
Perhaps putting them in a row
will eventually show
what they are trying to tell me.
so, here, I go.
SAVED BY THE GARDEN
Saved again by the Garden.
Its views extend my own.
Who knows what will become
of the seeds I have sown.
Better to focus on new life
than to reflect on the old.
RUNAWAY
Hurry to the table.
Pick up the pen.
Let thoughts descend
before I pick up a comb,
wash my face,
or even get dressed.
The words run off
too fast for any of that.
I struggle to catch the words
before they are lost
in mundane tasks.
Today, I was too slow.
DISAPPEARING ACT
Where do words go
when they run from me?
To another poet?
To another essayist?
Are they too uncomfortable to tell
the truths I know so well?
Is the runner the words,
or is it I who run
away from words ?
LOST DREAM
A blast of cold air
swept over the sheets
and awakened me too soon
before the dawn
grew bright enough
to see within the darkened room.
I could not see the words today.
I only felt the cold and felt bereft
that the dream had gone.
Filed under POETRY
COLD SLAP
Another night of fractured dreams
led me to the door where meaning lives
alone in the night sky
where dreams blew through
on cold winds of sheeted snow.
Swift yet slow, snow assaulted daffodil
who raised her face up and up and up
until deflated by the stinging slap of snow.
Then, daffodil, without a frown, bent down low.
With the dawn the snow is gone.
Cold remains. Its heavy space
tightening down the hope of grace
from sunny skies and warmer nights,
with gentling dreams of peace
and days of love’s delight
to make the world right.
Whence sleep can, once again,
make dreams whole.
LESSONS IN THE SPRING SNOW
They laugh aloud, the daffodils.
as snow falls, they turn up their faces
to catch a taste of cold.
Magnolia opens wide her blooms
no longer tight, and catches flakes
of snow on her pink face.
The herbs and perennials close ranks.
Sheltered by mulch they give thanks
for the gardener’s attention
to the Spring dissension
among the four winds’ direction.
a morning walk among the brethren
of the garden and its domain
builds trust and faith and hope
in the resilience of plant life.
and promises despite the strife
of pestilence and war
human life will endure.
AGING DREAMS
There were no stairs to climb
between four floors explored
in dreams repeated through the night.
Questions roamed with me and more,
excited by the unexpected chance
to replace an old dwelling with new,
under reconstruction which winds blew
through openings in walls.
The misplaced furnace unable to heat
such a large space blocked a place
to park a car. No garage. Its saving grace
was its place on a city street
where I could walk amid constant activity,
unlike the sedate pace of my current home.
The mortgage would be the same
I was assured. No years added
to its satisfaction date.
Did I want this new home built on the old?
Or this new body if Jung is to be believed?
Indecision and insistent queries gave me pause.
Better to draw an old body into new?
Or stay the course more ancient but more safe?
A question for the ages?
Or simply for the aging?
Filed under POETRY
BURNT OFFERINGS
Burnt offerings
from a mother dead
thirty years past
left smoking hot
on the stove top
in a dream confused
by vegetables wrapped
in stars
the sweet smell of meat
charred to sugar
potatoes sliced and crisped
arranged across the sky
amid the stars.
discovered after she
was ushered to the car
to begin her own journey
away from me
food left behind
to nurture a daughter
nearly blind
with grief for other mothers
and daughters, and self.
Ancient lessons taught
in the dead of night
of the power of burnt offerings
I had thought were hers
but in truth
are mine.
Filed under POETRY
TAX SEASON
I love paying taxes. I do.
They help me connect to you.
and you, and you, and you.
I pay my share and trust my taxes
will outlast the needs we share.
They show how much I care
about city, county, country.
Taxes build strong community.
The shining necklace
that connects us
is only so strong
as its strongest link.
so, I do not shrink
from my duty to pay my taxes.
They are never late.
It is the forms I hate,
pages of numbers
that destroy my slumber.
Is it too early to rise?
Can the day not wait
until my words can untangle,
by numbers strangled,
inside my dreams
where truths scream
to be lightly told
as dawn unfolds?
My dreams try to pass on
objects long gone
from emptied drawers:
wooden spaghetti fork,
aluminum sieve,
cotton cheesecloth.
All items one needs
to stir the pot as tangled food heats;
as tangled words strive to unfold
the stories hidden and untold.
And tools one needs to sift through
lies and deceits to give you truth.
Reading tax instructions in my sleep
makes me weep
at the destruction of poetry.
There is no tax symmetry.
Words flee the grasp of Publication 17.
Line by line of form 1040
blocks all ability and creativity,
destroying poems before they are born.
Tax season is the theft; not of cash,
but of dreams. Words are torn.
Tax season is a thief in the night
Tax season continues to steal even in daylight.
Filed under POETRY
DAWN
Dawn
The dawn!
The dawn!
How dare Sun
show his face.
I’ve learned to live
outside his grace,
to fend for myself,
to bend and scrape
a life beyond his space.
The ice has packed
my heart contained
in frozen lace
where it feels safe.
Now, Sun would melt
my dreams away.
Filed under Uncategorized
NO TIME TO WASTE
Hours bestow the power
to dribble away
a perfectly fine day.
The mind has no budget.
The sets are free;
The actors free of equity.
The script entertains
every possibility,
until dusk drops the curtain
upon our play.
The hours of the night
require footlights
whose cost we often cannot pay.
Daylight hours are meant
to store treasure to purchase
all we have dreamt.
We rest most easily
and dream most peacefully
when day has been well spent.
Filed under Uncategorized
Night Pears
Where pigs fly
And trees walk
The earth churns
And dreams unfold
As nightmares.
What we know as truth
Unravels whole cloth
And comes undone
Baring our naked fears
As nightmares.
And thus, I dream of pears
And manchego cheese
Sliced by the knife of fear
Lower than the gut
Of mankind’s survival.
Filed under POETRY
