The Irony of Dreams
The Irony of Dreams
The first thing I do to awake
is turn to music to subdue
that time when the strange bird
sings its own dark song, gaudy
among dream flowers
each night seeds of my past
are scattered from shadows
in the countable hours between
sane and sick or between
the thin cracks of mortar and brick
sometimes my mother sits at the foot
in her night chair--
waiting for mourning
sometimes Chopin is at a window
composing his Preludes, half
listening more to his third doctor
than to my personal request
for a requiem
old teachers: Richard speaking
of Canterbury with a frog voice
or Elizabeth, tall & brittle,
white & stork like,
urging me to write about art
and singing or music--
just because you’re no good
at either three, don’t mean
your writing can’t be
old friends:hummingbirds really,
hovering like small kisses,
wondering where i’ve been,
where i’m going or asking
why i still hold pictures
of people i no longer knew
