04-30-2016, 12:43 PM
LAST MEDITATIONS
last night, i dreamed a poem --
in fact, i've dreamed up many pieces before,
and though the quality was as tied to fortune
as anything written in consciousness,
at least the act of remembering
isn't as much of a struggle.
in dreams, any pains you have
you can choose to forget, to settle out
the sand for the sake of the gold --
but of course, forgetting only buries them
deep down, and not like corpses
but like seeds, waiting
for the right time
to return, blossoming.
the poem i forget, unlike the pains,
unlike those memories now turned, as with all remembered dreams,
into abstractions, into symbols
floating in mid-air, ready to be manipulated
with a flick of the wrist, to be interpreted:
i remember fear, first and foremost,
the fear of a man with a gun to his face,
and then exhaustion, as if
i had just climbed a mountain
yet the descent still loomed before me,
and finally the mild aches
of my brains blown out,
or, more profoundly, of my male sex
giving birth to a female child.
last night, before i slept,
i thought this season's el nino
had ended, as the rain
kept on pouring until midnight.
a sign from God, perhaps? thank God it wasn't.
that leaves me time
to help water the garden.
last night, i dreamed a poem --
in fact, i've dreamed up many pieces before,
and though the quality was as tied to fortune
as anything written in consciousness,
at least the act of remembering
isn't as much of a struggle.
in dreams, any pains you have
you can choose to forget, to settle out
the sand for the sake of the gold --
but of course, forgetting only buries them
deep down, and not like corpses
but like seeds, waiting
for the right time
to return, blossoming.
the poem i forget, unlike the pains,
unlike those memories now turned, as with all remembered dreams,
into abstractions, into symbols
floating in mid-air, ready to be manipulated
with a flick of the wrist, to be interpreted:
i remember fear, first and foremost,
the fear of a man with a gun to his face,
and then exhaustion, as if
i had just climbed a mountain
yet the descent still loomed before me,
and finally the mild aches
of my brains blown out,
or, more profoundly, of my male sex
giving birth to a female child.
last night, before i slept,
i thought this season's el nino
had ended, as the rain
kept on pouring until midnight.
a sign from God, perhaps? thank God it wasn't.
that leaves me time
to help water the garden.