In Your Dreams

*“Don’t you hate it when people tell you their dreams”

What do you see on that wobbly table?
Some playing cards, a clock, a knife, a candle?
Food a plenty, or a licked and empty
plate? Whatever’s there may set your fate

A swarthy woman in shimmery shawl
palms crossed with silvers mercurial
mutters

Can you see?
Look closer, closer, closer, dearie
Closer still

The ballet slipper, dancing a quick step one-one-one
One. A stranger still?
Alone again

I shall tell you what this means.

Push your face deeper in
in the goldfish bowl
there’s a synthetic shark which
swims, fearful of a dolphin’s piercing wit
Stay in your seat
if you wish me to share meaning of it
Open wider your gritted eyes, dear seeker
Look deeper

There’s a darker dentist set in deathly rows of killers’ teeth;
now, disarm him or risk the tiny dancer’s ridicule.
This can but mean some fool
is near, a-set with mischievous traps
for more honest souls

Look closer

Take heart, dear dreamer.
It’s true, we are the fools who dare to look
inside each other’s sleep-creased eyes

Please stop!
Peer inside your own
Inside that teacup of your reveries
write on those perfumed leaves that settle there
lessons you wish to learn here

Then take a sip
and slip
into a dreamless sleep
while I watch

ML April 14 2018

*“Don’t you hate it when people tell you their dreams” Laurie Anderson, Landfall.

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Napowrimo Day 14:-

Dream dictionaries have been around as long as people have had dreams. Interestingly, if you consult a few of them, they nearly always tend to have totally different things to say about specific objects or symbols. Dreams, unlike words themselves, don’t seem to be nicely definable! At any rate, today’s prompt is to write entries for an imaginary dream dictionary. Pick one (or more) of the following words, and write about what it means to dream of these things:

Teacup Hammer Seagull Ballet slipper Shark Wobbly table Dentist Rowboat

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