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🦋 Waking Poem
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow
He dreamt of his distributed weight
lying hair's-breadth by hair's-breadth this side of collapse
on the springs of his mattress; his linen-clad pillow,
the thousands of hairs on the nape of his neck; dreamt of
covers and sheets and the million thread count, the
mechanics of sleep, of the pale thunder moon, of the
gasp from his lungs as his body escapes
this cold matrix of wakefulness, bitterness, playfulness:
memories of nuzzling close in the arms of the
black grinning spectre of night.
Woke up this morning without much memory of the dream but with the strong impression that I had been dreaming about being asleep. Within a few minutes the poem had assembled itself in rough outline; over the next hour or so it came into a nice sharp focus.The epigraph is from a villanelle by Roethke: one I did not know of until today. I like its sense and its sound. "I learn by going where I have to go."
 Here is a link to several pieces I've posted over the last few months that I've been particularly happy with: Memories and Dreaming -- 7 original pieces plus 2 translations. Maybe if I get a couple more together, I will make a chapbook.
posted evening of Friday, July 15th, 2011
➳ More posts about Dreams
➳ More posts about Poetry
➳ More posts about Writing Projects
➳ More posts about Projects
➳ More posts about Epigraphs
➳ More posts about Readings
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Check out Ellen's writing at Patch.com.
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