Poetic Dreamscape

I've just finished an eight-week class on Reading as a Writer - Schools in (mostly) 20th Century Poetry.  If it sounds heady, it was.  I am a poet of the heart.  Ideas and feelings come to me and I write about it in rhyme and verse.  I hope I am approachable and relatable to my reader. 

This Monday night journey to the Lighthouse Writers Workshop not only took me up to Colfax, but also into my head. The schools were a bit tough to wrap my brain around. I can intellectualize just about anything. But poetry? I attempted to write a piece in at least one of the schools each week, modeling my style after famous poets. I read the 108 page handout the teacher e-mailed in advance of the start date. I admit, there was much I didn't 'get'. I took two voluminous tomes of poetry out of the library and renewed them until I couldn't. In other words, I gave it my best shot. Last night was the final class and we were encouraged to each bring a poem to read and cursorily workshop. The week before we had learned about Charles Spicer and were challenged to write a piece where we appear in a dream as a poet. There are a few layers in the following piece. *The stages loosely follow sleep stages *I took some liberty and lightly incorporated a different school into each segment *These are 'reworked' poems. Some I've edited to fit the theme. Others are a few stanzas of longer poems Poetic Dreamscape Stage I:  Beacon         

    How I loved to sit in that tree   

painstakingly planted

by my mother

That tree was my best friend

I would settle for hours

in the fragrant, feathery branches

No one could see me in that tree

sketchpad or notebook in hand

an early observer of my own world

Stage II:  Burst

Setting the perfect table

Forks on the left; sharp objects to the right

My mother always had a cornucopia

Filled with sarcasm and sage.  Nuts still in their shells

The centerpiece of judgement

Overwhelms my holiday table

Who will bear the vibration of this

Electric knife and cut into the flesh

Of our family dysfunction

Stage III:  Parasomnias

I wanted to be a nature poet

Happy haikus about migrating birds

Ode to autumnal colors

I yearned to be the poet

Whose wisdom is quietly whispered during savasana

Spandexed yogis nodding, namaste-ing

Instead my Higher Power, God?

Tapped me on the shoulder

Gave me sharp words.  Piercing prose

Stage IV:  Deep

Please, I begged.  Never write a love poem

With my name in your title.  Instead watch me dance

In the icy blue cosmic ooze. Learn the architecture of

My body.  The taste of my tongue

Poison ink of Eve’s garden - knowing

I am the forbidden fruit of my own desire

I was an Egyptian in my first lifetime, entombed in a

Jeweled sarcophagus.  Choking on my own throaty laughter

Once I gazed into a pool of malevolence, or was it mirth?

To see Narcissus.  I tumbled over but never drowned because

My wings noiselessly fluttered into the verse

Stage V: Delta

Grace is a place

that lives in my heart

in lightness and dark

abundant and stark

the song of a bird

kind actions, soft words

Amazing grace is a song

written by a slave master

denigrating black skin

while his shone alabaster

Grace is your mother

giving you birth

allowing your life

to flourish on earth

Grace is your father

without gentle hand

the day that you realize

a man’s just a man

Stage VI: REM

Must I write a poem to document the mundane?

A list of activities, chores and boredom

Does this let you into my heart?

I want you to know I am sensitive and brutal

I do not desire to write in another’s fashion

Wear their shoes.  Sleep with their spouse

I want you to read my words and.  Cry

Recant my thoughts.  Secrets.  Fears.

I would rather eat William’s plums

Than swallow his style

Stage VII:  The Awakening

In shadows

                                              I breathe

                                                                                       My poetic soul

Emerging                                                                                                                                                          

Stage VIII:  Circumverse

My poetry.  Nothing more than a vessel

Holding my heart full of nails

Jagged words

Often when I breathe

Breathe deeply, do the waxy serifs

Soften enough to let in

The neon yellow lettering

I try to juggle those

Encaustic ocher syllabary, but

Rune always manages to fall

Ever so slightly beyond

My unvoiced reach