The “Extreme” Dream

It was a classroom I stepped into and everyone had a seat but me.  I looked around awkwardly and understood that each desk had a song on it and each person was to perform that song in front of the class when their turn came.

Why was I so late?  Any possibility of finding something I could actually sing was pretty much gone, but I found an empty desk and the song there was “Extreme.”  I had some vague idea that this was a John Legend-type tune.

I left the classroom and found a large carpeted conference room that was empty and looked the song up on my phone.  As it played I tried to sing along in that kind of quiet mumbly way you do when you don’t know the lyrics.  

The sweet spot of the song was a little falsetto jump that actually sounded good when I sang it and I felt a little spark of hope flare up in my chest that said “this is doable.”  But my time was running out and memorizing the entire thing was impossible.

So, like in many other dreams, I just sat on the floor in despair and wondered at my lot.  Why was life so hard?  Why did I seem so ill-prepared for it?  Why did everyone else seem to know their song and I was only ever left guessing?

***

Love and Despair

 

Love is a two-handed great sword

swung in the battle against despair

but

the enemy is a great and terrible beast

and I’m too weak to hoist it into the air.

And so I wait for someone to save me

while I simply sit in this chair and stare

but

then the beast has swallowed me whole

and sadly I don’t even seem to care.

***

Trip to Mars

 

How is that possible 

at such a low price?

The barker looks down,

his smile a slice.

There is something odd

at the cant of his head.

He seems quite alive

but his color quite dead.

The little boy flinches,

winces, wanting to run

but the carnival man 

insists on some fun.

And then it hits him out 

of an orangey-blue sky.

He *is* on Mars

in a dream on the fly.

He awakes with a start

escaping the Martian-man.

Ten cents is nothing 

if you are where you stand. 

***

Running Lines of Rust

 

In the running lines of rust

I see my approaching fate.

In the rush to do well 

I am always running late.

Starving to do what’s right

I don’t even lick the plate.

Needs versus wants 

I tend to conflate.

Above all else I want 

to eliminate hate

But hear a voice vibrate, 

“hurry up and wait.”

***

The Girl, the Gold Watch, and (almost) Everything

 

I find myself standing on the darkened porch and hate myself for it.  The sound of music comes muffled through the leaded glass of the front door and I can see colored lights flickering in the foyer from the large screen TV situated in the front room.  

I reach into my front pocket and pull out the watch letting the chain dangle in space.  Turning it gently in my hand I marvel at its intricate design and feel its inner movements vibrating on my sweaty palm.  Thumb and forefinger find the crown and apply light pressure on either side of it.  My eyes follow the second hand as it tick-tick-ticks hypnotically in a circle.  My awareness begins to dilate and move outward from where I stand on the darkened porch.  

In this state I sense the man getting up from the couch and walking towards the foyer.  Maybe I had not been as quiet as I had thought.  My remaining three free fingers wrap tightly around the watch to secure it.  I seem to be standing behind the man on the other side of the door who is turning the knob in slow motion while applying upward pressure on the light switch.

A popping sensation emanates from the watch as I pull up on the crown, the second hand stops, and my awareness returns home to my body.  The dark outline of the man inside the house is frozen in place behind the glass, the door slightly ajar.  The switch has been flipped but the light stops just short of my face which I can see by moving my hand in and out of the rounded boundary between light and shadow, the rays fully arrested in their speedy journey.  At the last possible second I had heard her laugh.

Words from somewhere in my past catch up with me in this in between place: “Everything is permissible to me, but not all things are beneficial”.  I don’t belong here.

***

Not All Clones are Created Equal

 

Clearly, 

not all clones

are created equal

as anyone

knows who has 

seen a sequel

 

and god 

forbid they 

make a prequel!

Clearly,

not all clones

are created equal.

***

Hidden Oceans

Hidden oceans and depth of sky 

within each person we pass by. 

Doors may open to pour it out 

waves of pain, clouds of doubt. 

Stand your ground and let it flow

we need each other to fully grow.

***

Thoughts on The Dark Lighthouse

The Dark Lighthouse

Today I was re-reading this recent experimental short story (it has a fixed paragraph size) and a particular sentence struck me.  I’ve written a handful of these type stories and I find its spatial limitations help me focus a bit more, kind of like how writing a poem does.  My experience has been that it forces me to get each idea or image into a circumscribed size and extraneous stuff is forced to fall off, kind of like using a cookie cutter to get a visually pleasing shape.

The sentence is “And he ascends one step at a time in a slow upward spiral that spins into days and then weeks and maybe even months but there is no progress as far as he can tell.”  Reading it a second time I had the strange feeling I’d seen something like that before.  Today it struck me.  It is from Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are.  When Max has entered a dream state and is traveling to where the wild things are it says “and an ocean tumbled by with a private boat for Max and he sailed off through night and day and in and out of weeks and almost a year to where the wild things are.”

This is an example of the time distortion that can occur in dream states where our waking understanding of time and space doesn’t necessarily apply.  In psychoanalytic circles it might be referred to as “primary process” thinking or “dream logic” in film studies.  It is theorized that there is a deep place under our conscious awareness where our waking life is processed in various and sundry ways in order to solve a problem or meet a need.  What comes from this process makes its way into our conscious awareness through a kind of filter that is replete with metaphors, symbols, and fantastical imagery.  Talking about our dreams and free association are ways the analyst can get at the underlying meaning and help us understand what is troubling us and maybe how to resolve it.  It is well known that Maurice worked with an analyst regularly for years and its influence can be seen in works like Where the Wild Things Are, In the Night Kitchen, and Outside Over There.

Looking at The Dark Lighthouse again I think it is about a man who is dying and in the process of dying becomes reborn or maybe “re-birthed” would be more accurate.  There is the groan of labor, the sound of the mother’s heartbeat, going headfirst down the birthing canal, and emerging into light. In the “real” world some of the imagery implies the possibility of a plane crash at sea and being swept ashore unconscious and only half-alive.  So, a journey back to life.  

Whatever the case may be the process of writing stories can be a kind of free association where connections are being made and understanding approached but only in part with some of it coming into conscious awareness when reading it at a later date and not necessarily during the writing process itself.  It’s like a gift that keeps on giving.

***

Darryl Dreams of Planetwide Peace

 

The Wanderer

Walking through the shadow of the Eiffel tower
or sitting by a bronze lion on Trafalgar Square.

Kayaking down the blue Danube in 3/4 time
or standing below twin Frida’s with external hearts.

Looking up with a crick in my neck at the CN tower
or admiring the huge persimmons of Gyeongbok Palace.

Wandering through an ancient monastery outside Mosul
(that Isis subsequently obliterated with explosives) 

or

chugging along Europe’s largest lake to Valaam Island
where monks have labored for a thousand years.

A young and restless pilgrim with limitless energy
who has slowly transitioned into a tired old man.