76 Dreams poems

Without the sun filtered through closed eyelids, without the siren along the service road, without Grandpa’s ginger-colored hair, Mother’s lipstick, Daughter’s manicure, firecrackers, a monkey’s ass, a cherry, Rei’s lost elephant, without communist or past tense, or a character seeing her own chopped-off feet dancing in fairy slippers, or Mao’s favorite novel about a chamber — the scientist of sleep has claimed that without warm blood a creature cannot dream.

I wish I knew the contents and I wish the contents Japanese — like hairpins made of tortoiseshell or bone though my braid was lopped off long ago, like an overpowering pine incense or a talisman from a Kyoto shrine, like a Hello Kitty diary-lock-and-key, Hello Kitty stickers or candies, a netsuke in the shape of an octopus, ticket stubs from the Bunraku — or am I wishing for Mother? searching for Sister? just hoping to give something Japanese to my daughters? then again, people can read anything into dreams and I do as well. I wish I possessed my mother’s black lacquer box though in my dream it was red, though I wish my heart were content.

Benedicite! whate dreamed I this nyght? Methought the worlde was turnyd up so downe The sun, the moone had lost their force and lyght, The sea also drowned both toure and towne. Yet more marvel how that I heard the sounde Of onys voice saying: beare in thy mynd, Thi lady hath forgotten to be kynd.

I In the moonlight, in the heavy snow, I was hunting along the sunken road and heard behind me the quiet step and smothered whimper of something following . . . Ah, tree of panic I climbed to escape the night, as the furry body glided beneath, lynx with steady gaze, and began the slow ascent. II And dark blue foxes climbed beside me with famished eyes that glowed in the shadows; I stabbed with a sharpened stick until one lay across the path with entrails spilled, and the others melted away. The dead fox moved again, his jaws released the sound of speech. III Slowly I toiled up the rotting stairs to the cemetery where my mother lay buried, to find the open grave with the coffin tilted beside it, and something spilled from the bottom— a whiteness that flowed on the ground and froze into mist that enveloped the world.

It is always the same: she is standing over me in the forest clearing, a dab of blood on her cheek from a rabbit or a deer. I am aware of nothing but my mutinous flesh, and the traps of desire sent to test it— her bare arms, bare shoulders, her loosened hair, the hard, high breasts, and under a belt of knives and fish-lures, her undressed wound. Every night the same: the slashed fetlock, the buckling under; I wake in her body broken, like a gun.

My story’s told in the mis-dial’s hesitance & anonyms of crank calls, in the wires’ electric elegy & glass expanded by the moth flicker of filament. I call a past that believes I’m dead. On the concrete here, you can see where I stood in rust, lashed to the grid. On the corner of Pine & Idlewood, I’ve seen a virgin on her knees before the angel of a streetlight & Moses stealing the Times to build a fire. I’ve seen the city fly right through a memory & not break its neck. But the street still needs a shrine, so return my ringing heart & no one to answer it, a traveler whose only destination is waywardness. Forgive us our apologies, the bees in our bells, the receiver’s grease, days horizoned into words. If we stand monument to anything, it’s that only some voices belong to men.

What night-rule now about this haunted grove? The spirits have dispersed, the woods faded to grey from midnight blue leaving a powdery residue, night music fainter, frivolous gods withdrawing, cries of yin and yang, discords of the bionic young; cobweb and insects, hares and deer, wild strawberries and eglantine, dawn silence of the biosphere, amid the branches a torn wing — what is this enchanted place? Not the strict groves of academe but an old thicket of lost time too cool for school, recovered space where the brain yields to nose and ear, folk remedy and herbal cure, old narratives of heart and hand, and a dazed donkey, starry eyed, with pearls and honeysuckle crowned, beside her naked nibs is laid. Wild viruses, Elysian fields — our own planet lit by the fire of molten substance, constant flux, hot ice and acrobatic sex, the electric moth-touch of desire and a new vision, a new regime where the white blaze of physics yields to yellow moonlight, dance and dream induced by what mind-altering drug or rough-cast magic realism; till morning bright with ant and bug shines in a mist of glistening gism, shifting identities, mutant forms, angels evolved from snails and worms.

They took my body to the forest They asked me to climb a ladder I did not want to climb a ladder But they forced me to climb the ladder If you don’t climb the ladder we will bury you in the foamy mud I had to decide: should I die by hanging or by burial I climbed the ladder and they wrapped a belt around the thick limb of a tree And then when I could no longer breathe they tossed me into a stream And I floated to the edge of the village where someone prayed for my soul It’s like this in a lullaby for the end of the world: The options for the end are endless But this is not really a lullaby for the end of the world It’s about the beginning what happens when we start to rot in the daylight The way the light shines on the ants and worms and parasites mauling our bodies It’s about the swarms of dogs gnawing our skin and bones Do you know what it’s like when a ghost licks your intestines Do you know what it’s like when a rat devours your brain To avoid the hole the children must sing sweetly, softly To avoid the hole they must fill their songs with love

1    There are few probabilities through Which dreamers do not pass. . . The first dream Is the bright red dream Of our mother’s heart. It is her sacrifice Of something eternal In herself, for us. The Arabs say Blood has flowed Let us begin again. The heart is like a cup, or a coffer, or a cave. It holds the image of the sun within us. It is a center of illumination and happiness and wisdom. To dream of the heart is always to dream of the importance of love. . . The second dream is the inauguration Of the soul. In this dream we are Confronted by a host of birds. . . Some were guileless Like the doves,

All night I stumble through the fields of light, And chase in dreams the starry rays divine That shine through soft folds of the robe of night, Hung like a curtain round a sacred shrine. When daylight dawns I leave the meadows sweet And come back to the dark house built of clay, Over the threshold pass with lagging feet, Open the shutters and let in the day. The gray lit day heavy with griefs and cares, And many a dull desire and foolish whim, Leans o’er my shoulder as I spread my wares On dusty counters and at windows dim. She gazes at me with her sunken eyes, That never yet have looked on moonlit flowers, And amid glaring deeds and noisy cries Counts out her golden tale of lagging hours. Over the shrine of life no curtain falls, All men may enter at the open gate, The very rats find refuge in her walls— Her tedious prison walls of love and hate. Yet when the twilight vails that dim abode I bar the door and make the shutters fast, And hurry down the shadowy western road, To seek in dreams my starlit home and vast.