This was at night, a lobotomy dream.
We made the darkness ribbon up,
one little globe
in a drawstring on a
scaffold, to convince Goldilocks, blonde
curls hanging down the ten stories
that we were only fairies, to be adored
and feared a little.
Then I stole a tiny pack of smokes from
the Army. Don't know why--they were there
to help!--but I just wanted to don
my medal. A friend, whose
face shook in the sun,
told me, "Get out!"
I woke from the dream and went to the street.
Down there was the Black Dude
fighting with his boss, the Ice Man. The Black Dude was
asleep on the job.
"I wish I had a camera!"
"Yeah, yeah."
"Yeah, yeah."
"I'll pull out yurr eyes, man!"
In the dream we were prisoners,
but out here we are free,
the Black Dude, the Ice Man and me.
9 comments:
You wrote this at 8am? I can see that I will have to learn something new (which is a good thing)I will have to leave my warm surroundings of pink belt buckles and dirty bathrooms (also a good thing)and try to navigate your words and thoughts, learn to understand something I want to, but don't. I see glimpses of you in your words, like you flashing by, speaking in a language I don't know, and me shouting "wait!"
Well, I didn't write it @ 8 AM--that's when I put it up here. I've been working on it since last Spring, I think. Plus it's never all real--the good poems are the most fantastic, the least earthbound, but through earth eyes. Yeah? And for me, the glimpses are the thrilling part.
special p, this is maybe my favorite use of form and creativity in structure that you've done...huzzah! i especially enjoyed the presentation of dialogue and punctuation in the penultimate stanza,,also, the opening line is shocking and lovely at the same time.
upon further review....i think the 2nd stanza is maybe your tightest...a full of whimsy and napalm...(ribbon*, drawstring, dangling curls is a nice run of 'suspended' images) nice play on the word stories/fairies...and juxtoposition of being adored and feared, with goldilocks is very clever and a bit jarring....ps..*ribbon is an awesome verb....im lost as to the allusion (if there is one) of the balck dude, and iceman(save the xman bobby drake) and im not sure how i feel about the ending rhyme...im conflicted...on one hand its a nice throwback to the goldilocks stanza, which i enjoy...on the other hand it reminds me of a song..i cant think of which one...[humming] just something something and me....
ill get back to you on this one...but i really do like the imagery and the flow...alright cracka...good works...903..good times...dance party plus
The last rhyme is indeeeeed something to ponder. It seems so very familiar but the closest thing I can come up with is "The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea green boat." Then again, it's 1:19 in the morning and I don't remember anything ever anyway. But I think it's very cadent and I like it. So fucking there.
The poem gets really into gear in the third stanza (in the dream we made the darkness...). Not that the second stanza should be dismissed, but maybe the entire thing starting with "The dream was about things leaving" or "after the surgery." I don't know. You are so much more eloquent at this than I am. But I do agree with Brian that the "In the dream we made the darkness" is the most enticing stanza--though I think the Ice man Black Dude encounter comes in a close second for entirely different reasons.
I agree with all said things here. Things said here. Whatever.
Stanza-wise, I, too, don't know about #2. I'm not really sure if it's necessary, I guess. The "leaving" business can, I think, stand to be cut--the only part I'm not really considering cutting is, "This was at night, a lobotomy dream," just because I like its rhythm...and after consulting wikipedia I see that it's a bunch of radical anapests (after the word "This"). I like anapests. But yeah, I don't know...I'd kind of like to get right to the chase, the dream that the damn poem is named after, so I don't know if saying "The dream was about ____" is actually doing anything for the whole thing. Unless maybe I find some badass/expressive way to evoke the feel of the dream. Any suggestions, comments, brainstorms, etc. will be gratefully stolen.
Also, I JUST FUCKING FIGURED OUT what the last stanza reminds me of (cause I couldn't figure it out either)--the final lyrics of the Rainbow Connection ("The lovers, the dreamers, and me")...which is actually pretty interesting in an unconscious sort of way...and really funny to me. I'm actually kind of reeling that I wrote it like that...but I'm glad you guys like it, because I do, too. The more I look at this, too, the more I hear a kind of fairy-tale, children's book prosody in it, which I think has a lot to do with why I like it.
Hope y'all are not dying of snow. I'm allergic.
Kermit the motherfucking frog!
thats what it is....son of a bitch!..it aint easy been green
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