There is more to it than
inconsolable thoughts and drafty nights.
Can you dive into your self, surf
not drown, a deeper body of knowing?
I met a one-eyed woman in a dream. She showed me her collections
of snake skins and red leather shoes. Inaudibly, she told me
she lives at the bridge. I forgot the dream until I met a woman
under Ballard Bridge at Leary and 15th. She showed me a shoebox
full of snake skins and dusty trilobite husks. Tossing bread crumbs
to gulls watching one eye at a time, she mumbled something and
shuffled away in a pair of withered red boots.
Have you seen her? She is someone you knew
before meeting; she is the part of you staying
afloat in a deeper body of knowing.
I am familiar with that place…but whenever one has a dream,premonition or deja vue experience it’s important to record it.. life is a mystery, especially when it comes to time and place and the theory of relativity. You captured the singular issue of being open to deeper connections very well here…
This is a lovely sort of story poem. Lovely is not the right word. We all have a bit that is just surviving. Also kind of an observer. I don’t think mine has red boots, but to each their own, I suppose. You tell this so beautifully and with a marvelous cadence and matter-of-factness. It has a feel of some of Robert Bly’s great work. k.
thank you, karin.
Jane, I Liked the way you put poetry and prose together. It is something I have tried and am still working at. Very nice piece over all. >KB
Staying afloat in a deeper body. You nailed it.
Wowza….nailed it! …and so so awesome.
Oh wow, this one made me stop and think – I love that when a poem does that. A little eerie but I love the play on the idea that she is one part of who we are, one part of I – one eye
hi jane
you do manage to insert a pure essence of surrealist edge into this piece with a true sense of the uncanny threaded thru its mainline: a dreamscape is hard to do well, by retaining that unreal feel of the clearest notion of unreality you pin the hand to the softest of clocks. thanks Jane
Dream and reality always seem to be uncomfortable dance partners who yet, once dancing, forget their differences in the pleasure of the thing they create–many poems come from dreams, I find, some of the best–and many poems that come from reality seem like dreams when one reads them–this has something of the feel of both.
I have dreams like that. I like your questions, Jane… and I do know her.
oh wow…this is so good…love how dream and reality mingle here…the one-eyed woman…you paint with bright colors here that diffuse and shape in new ways again…She is someone you knew
before meeting…yes…
Ah, yes, I have met her, too. Jane, I wrote a poem a while ago which asks similar questions and has a similar feel to it — a deeper kind of knowing — meeting the stranger, my own self. Here is the link to the poem and I hope you enjoy it. My poetic voice has changed over the year, but I think I will always remember this poem. I hope you don’t mind me making this connection after reading yours. Yours was very gripping and it awakens, it awakens.
http://wp.me/p1hVPn-hV
That’s the short link, but if it doesn’t work, let me know ; ))
long link: http://fromaflower.wordpress.com/2011/04/24/to-the-selkie/
Wow.. I’ve done that.. dreamt something and then have it happen. Not often. It does make me wonder though. A lot of things. I usually have my dream-life figured out (why and where it comes from, etc), just occasionally one knocks me from nowhere. I dreamt my grandfather died the night before he did. Intriguing and poetically very solid piece
Luke, death/changing dimensions seems to translate more easily in dream state than other events do. very cool you dreamt he died the night before he did- that is intriguing to me. thanks for your read.