Tag Archives: Dream Songs

Dream Song #5, Pandemic Poem #4

I dreamed I saw a Wooly dog descendant—
wiggle-butted, scruffy, ornery, clearly
one more in a long line of poodle-terrier mutts.
His owner said, “he’s a Rottweiler,” but
no way. Just too much Benji evident.
Black against the giant foxtail. Curly
in every way—tousled coat, bent tail,
wagging walk toward me when I called.
When I was little, we let our dogs run free
all day and shut them up at night. Also, we
got the girl dogs fixed, but not the boys.
Thus all the Wooly dogs in Southern Illinois.
Every single thing was looser then.
I was happy. My dogs were my best friends.

______

Napping with Wooly.

Dream Song #4 (a fat sonnet)

The trees and hills are at that awkward point
of winter, snow on the ground but nowhere else,
a bald guy with new implants too spread-out
to be attractive. I can’t wait until it all melts.
I had a dream once of climbing a hill like that.
I stubbed my toe, looked down to see bright pink
instead of white—blood mixed with snow—I think
that’s why hills look like heads to me still. What
dream book should I consult for giant head
with tender scalp and kicked-up bleeding crown?
I was part of a dream journaling experiment back then
and had a wicked crush on the therapist who led
the group. He had snake dreams. We all said
a snake means sex. He said no, not always. It doesn’t.
At 22, I was a nearly-manic mix of depressed
and horny and drank too much one time and tried to find
his house. I knew it was by a lake. If I found
his house, he didn’t answer the door. Which is good.
That night felt like a dream, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t.

Dream Song #1

My family said I’d lost about two months
when I called to say I’d popped back up in time.
They were, in my opinion, a little too calm
about my reappearance. In their defense,
they’d gotten several calls from other mes
from other times. I hadn’t made it home
to them on any of those other times.
I set out, offering up a tiny “please.”
I can’t stop seeing my original descent,
a fall, as from a plane, no chute, convinced
I was about to die. Somehow I didn’t.
Wind held me up. Or magnets. Or just friction.
In any case, the grass I landed on
was softer than I can describe. Softer than

_____

My cat, Callie, wondering if I’m going to kick her off the back porch, out of the dirty clothes. Not yet.

I love sleeping. I love dreaming. I love my dreamscapes. I love writing sonnets. I love Berryman’s dream songs. So–let’s see how many of these I can write? And how long will it take Callie to sleep so I can take a second picture, illustrating sleep?