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Saturday 26 November 2011

potpourri

Deep in an autumn night
the wind comes, blows
the last dreams from the trees.
Deep drifts of them
the like of which
I have not dreamed before
pile up against the fences,
walls and doors.

Some are from my sleep,
are from our trees,
but most are from the neighbors' gardens.

It is not always easy to see which.

In one, relaxed, reclining at his ease,
and on a hammock:
God, beneath two cherry trees
from which the fruit is falling fast,
which now I see him catch
and bless and throw into the air.
The former cherries
fly away as birds.

But then. In quite another dream
the cherry dream
is stood against a wall and shot
for blasphemy -
or is it heresy?
It's one of those...
The firing squad are hungry wolves.
Hungry for what, I ask myself.
They look well fed.

And so the dreams pile up
and rustle round each other,
flap against the windows
and the doors, demand
admittance through the day.

A rugby ball I kick along a beach
becomes two balls with every kick.
One morphs into a brain.
When I look back the beach
is strewn with human brains.
How can mankind
make use of so much power?

There is a church.
Black, silhouette
and ringed with bats.
I find it locked against me.
Black birds are flying down
from its high tower.
They're forming rings around me.
I think they will attack
with sharpened beaks,
but then they turn
and pull the church apart,
black stone by stone.
Inside the church, a cage
in which the clergy
have been locked.
All the priests
from all the ages
past and present
are trapped in there.
Of God there is no sign.

Another dream is stuck to this.
A monkey puts a match
to the steel cage
and burns it down.
God walks out from
the smouldering remains.
I do not see
what happens to the priests.

14 comments:

kaykuala said...

Dave,
Your dreams are dispersed in many directions. Chilling in parts. I wonder if it's possible to come up with some interpretations.

Hank

Mary said...

Whew, this is an eerie one, Dave. I believe the dreamer is probably the best one to inte.rpret

Jinksy said...

Certainly took me to a world of dreams...

Deep drifts of them
the like of which
I have not dreamed before
pile up...

Anonymous said...

do like the blessing falling like blessings.

Tommaso Gervasutti said...

Powerful rendering of the amazement dreams leave.
I caught a touch of irony in the last two lines that reinforces the strength of the whole puzzling "piling up".

Windsmoke. said...

Bonza dream sequences i especially like the second last stanza because its chilling and creepy :-).

Cait O'Connor said...

Deep in an autumn night
the wind comes, blows
the last dreams from the trees.
Deep drifts of them
the like of which
I have not dreamed before
pile up against the fences,
walls and doors.

Your poems are all so good and yet so different. Today's has got my imagination going and has inspired me.

haricot said...

The series of dreams brings me into an unknown space. God created mankind who created God, or Mankind created God who created mankind?

Anonymous said...

i hope i don't have dreams like this

sunny said...

nice one Mr Dave.

Anonymous said...

Wow...I love your descriptions of the dreams and all of the vividly surreal images they induce within this richly multi-faceted poem...

Dave King said...

kaykuala
I don't think interpretations would get us very far: they were all fibs. Might be interesting in other ways, though.

Mary
It didn't occur to me that folk might think the dreams genuine...

Jinksy
Sometimes difficult to know where they begin and end.

wolfrosebud
Hi! A warm welcome to you. And my thanks for your comment. Very much appreciated.

Tommaso
The one dream in the whole that was genuine was that of dreams blowing off the trees in the form of autumn leaves.

Windsmoke
Thanks for that. Yes, it can be seen thus.

Cait
That's probably the most exciting thing one poet can hear from another. Thanks for it.

haricot
Ah, the chicken and the egg, begad!

zongrik
Hi. Good to have you visiting. Your comment is much appreciated. Dreams I good, I find - even bad ones.

sunny
Thanks

unsungpoet
Many thanks for your most generous comment. It is much appreciated.

Kathy Bischoping said...

I like your paired dreams. The God-and-cherries juxtaposition is so unusual. It makes me think of The Cherry Tree carol. Here's Joan Baez singing it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYaFGSG_x80

Eileen T O'Neill ..... said...

Dave,

I love the various images linked with the autumnal season.
Equally, I do like and appreciate the thoughts within your dream about the locked church and the trapped priests.

Perhaps it points to the lack of a religious fervour in the country these days. Almost a reluctance to even be seen participating...
Locked up churches, a sign of the times, when a church is neither safe inside, or from the outside intruders.

It reminds me very mch of sections of Brave New World...Indeed much of that has become scary reality!!!
Dave,
Excuse my lateness in reading, but I have been away from home and also, been behind with writing...
Best Regards, Eileen