Wherein I write embarrassing poems in my sleep...

... and make up for it by finishing with legitimate poetry.

August is a fickle season, a human season. Summer simmers and winter shivers, and spring's a night owl in the morning. Fall is that troubled teen: graceful, violently shifting, whimsical, moody, a vibrant, fragile life. When the tears of trees trouble the earth in crimson sheets and cotton clouds sheepishly graze the sky, and the birds skedaddle south or wriggle deeper into their nests, the cork of fall from summer severs us, and our lives flare into a temper of pigments. We are a glass beauty, angelic, translucent, brittle as first frost beneath smoky stars. We are fall.


At some point in my life, I developed a habit of waking in the cradle of night for a bathroom break. During these instances, I write down whatever is on my mind, briefly, on my phone. At first, I was reluctant to own a smart phone. Given no choice, I've discovered some very attractive features (taking easy notes in the dark). Most often, my "stroke of genius" at 3 in the morning is not worth contemplating in the morning. Occasionally, I remember dreams, and those I frequently write down as inspiration, and avenues into my subconscious.


If you send a string, I'd follow its lead
where'er my heart it may bring
through a whisper, if a light
into darkness beyond night
seas a storm may rend asunder
yet tarry not the tides
for whose smile I climb
up mountains high
pluck
a flower from the gods
or swim up the styx
for a momentofyourtime
I'll surrender all of mine


About as raw a poem as could possibly be. Even as I transfer it from my phone into this blog, I yearn more than anything to edit and prettify the rawness. I probably will, eventually. But I don't often sleep write poetry. You know how it is when you've committed so much time into a practice, habit, activity that your dreams and thoughts are rife with that activity? Like putting a puzzle together so many hours that, even sleeping, you are clicking pieces together in your dreams. Or reading a book hour after hour or studying for a test, and as you lie in bed, your fingers are twitching as they highlight another line, pen another reminder, or your eyes scan left to right and invent new stories for your subconscious reading pleasure. Maybe I read too much poetry these last couple of days, and now my subconscious tries, desperately, to formulate imagery from the sanctums of sleeping story. If so, I hope it continues.

Eventually, I'll be capable of poetry (or some semblance thereof). Nothing's so poetic as the palette of autumn




Under the Harvest Moon

  by Carl Sandburg
   Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

   Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.


And a little John Donne Holy Sonnet 14 (always a favorite):
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to another due,
Labor to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Sunday Night Dreams: August Lands

Rumors drifted as a cool breeze across the burning hearts of the sore dwellers. They stood there, as every eventide, entranced in the prehistoric cannibalism of night, consuming the fire of the heavens. When the sun was swallowed, the thousand-eyed monster would open its eyes, and with countless teeth gnashing from the sea, it stared hungrily down, and the tribe would soon scamper into the hiding places, the caves of the coast, until the angry burning was reborn.

Their backs were stooped, scraggly hairs and hirsute faces merging into chest and arms, like patchy animals with ragged nails and teeth. Dull their eyes, but something, deep in those wells, shone a knowing, a spell of survival that surpassed simple savagery. And this knowing despised something of the searing heats, and their childlike thoughts savored myths of the temperate lands like sweetness on the lips. I remember. There are few of us who remain, when the prophet came, telling of the land behind these tooth-tipped waves and beyond this dome of the sky. He appeared from the wind, and his words invented magic and music these creatures understood not. Still, to this day, the distant children of this people cry, knowing not why, missing pieces of their soul. Listen: his songs fill those holes.

"A distant land beyond these waves, with peaceful nights and cautious days, whose maples sway and leaves gold turn, turn, an endless fall. You've sought it long, and know not for what you're made. These lands call your names. Golden trees with silver leaves, a pleasant breeze and fearless eves, and a love worth taxing days."

Some were bought, some stayed, though the sea was fierce and broad. I, for one, must see this fall land, this endless summer burnt me bronze and black, eyes dark as night and no joy, no joy left for this living fire. So I ran across the waters, we were stronger then, faster, and we chased the sun at night. So fast, so fleet, it never escaped into the monster's maw, we pursued it endlessly. At least, the shores of silver greeted our endless sunset race, and golden trees and singing birds whistled as we landed, the deer grazed unafraid. Even the sky cried in joy, and we cried in fright at its falling tears, hiding under those honeyed boughs.

We stood taller, eyes shone brighter, and we paid the price for fall, and gained a strange knowledge in return.



Sometimes you wake up. Sometimes the fall kills you. And sometimes when you fall, you fly.
~ Neil Gaiman