I'm only sleeping...

sometimes
sleeping
less often
dreaming
even less often remembering
dreaming
clearly
not one of the 100
chosen by Marina Abramovic
in The Dream Book
to retreat
into solitude
and then
relate my dream(s)
unopened
unutterable
bound
wrapped
threaden
silken
locked

A Dream and the Persistence of Grief

You think it is final. You think all that is over and done with, fine linen stained with tears put away in a drawer. And then a morning dream. We seem to be somewhere with a countertop. It might even be a bar, but there is no drinking, no smoke, no sounds. It seems bottles might be arrayed in the background, in front of a mirror. It is a dream, so one never know, afterwards. It is Richard, my older brother. The cancer was discovered in August of 2005, just after we got back from camp, as we did yesterday. The course was rapid. The light, what little there is, is dusty, no not dusty, more like dusky but gray. A clear gray if that is imaginable. Richard is wearing a gray suit. How do I know it is him? I see his face. There are no words. We embrace. I sob uncontrollably hard. We hug tightly. My ample tears fall on his neck and shoulder. The moisture seeps through the padded fabric of his suit.

I awake sad.

In halting and fractured terms, I tell my wife of this dream, knowing full well how inadequate my description is. She says something about my love for him or me for him, that he is trying to tell me something from there. I don't know if I believe that. I don't find it especially reassuring. I tell her I am sad, it was sad.

I stop and think that Mom and Beverly and Laurie, for all I know, have had such dreams countless times. I will not ask them.

We go to church, first time together in months. I was going to go to nearby Saint Mark's, on the west side; she had already left for Saint David's. I changed my mind and showed up, in the middle of the sermon, at Saint David's, on the east side, the suburbs. She said yesterday was her dead father's birthday. At the prayers for the dead I couldn't get the words out and tried to make no show of what my eyes were doing.

She pointed to the bulletin, to the first reading, which I had missed, from Genesis. She pointed to the bottom of the passage, an excerpt about Joseph, in exile in Egypt.

Then he fell upon his brother Benjamin's neck and wept, while Benjamin wept upon his neck. And he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; and after that his brothers talked with him.

In the mail that had accumulated in our absence, a large envelope package, from my brother Bobby. A luscious coffee-table book, Baseball As America.

Beth and I went to a minor-league game last night, before the dream, with Steve and Steve and Ed. Beth and I left before the fireworks.

Today I wonder if Jack is back from Chicago.

And marvel at how three surviving brothers can skirt this grief of many colors.

I, Um, Had a Dream

Bob Dylan dreamed he saw Saint Augustine, or so he said in his song from the John Wesley Harding album:

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive as you or me,
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery,
With a blanket underneath his arm
And a coat of solid gold,
Searching for the very souls
Whom already have been sold.

"Arise, arise," he cried so loud,
In a voice without restraint,
"Come out, ye gifted kings and queens
And hear my sad complaint.
No martyr is among ye now
Whom you can call your own,
So go on your way accordingly
But know you're not alone."

I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive with fiery breath,
And I dreamed I was amongst the ones
That put him out to death.
Oh, I awoke in anger,
So alone and terrified,
I put my fingers against the glass
And bowed my head and cried.

Copyright © 1968; renewed 1996 Dwarf Music

(No offense, Mr. Dylan, but the "whom" at the end of the first verse should've been a "who," but you can rightfully claim poetic license.)

Me, I dreamed last night John Lennon was about to kick my ass in a drunken brawl at a party. He was drunk, not me. I was lying there, mute, minding my own business, sleeping in my bed. John, did you forget "I'm Only Sleeping"? Good song. That was me, sleeping. What was he so pissed off about anyway? I mean, "Give Peace a Chance," won't you? "We Can Work It Out." I don't know what caused the fracas (we in America pronounce it FRAY-kuss; do they really say frah-KAH in the British Isles?). Maybe he was angry because he found out Paul used to be (past tense) my favorite Beatle when I was in high school (same first name; we're both left-handed; plus, his cuteness must've appealed to my subterranean homesick blues latent homosexuality or anglophilia or whatever).

"Let It Be."

H a i k u

wind-swirled snow crystals
landing on naked branches
unvirginned hardscape

these gloved hands wonder
where August's sweat is hiding --
until they find skin

carnal petals sleep

the white dream of memory

pulsing but empty

a harbor of pearls
beckons the lunar nightscape
cumulus shrouded