Woke up screaming & when Rachel tried to get me to say what I was dreaming about, the only comprehensible thing she could make out was:

"The books don't have any words..."

My mother coyly mentions a poem she heard (from a little bird) I wrote about her, titled "World War 2". Denial & discomfort ensue.

Rachel informs me I woke her up around 5AM or so to inform her that she was "wearing a piece of pizza and a pepper."

From Chris Hutchinson:

MARTHA STEWART

I dreamt I met Martha Stewart, that I had become successful enough to visit her at home. I was amazed at the layout of the place. Strange instillations were built into every room. In the hallway road signs and traffic lights hung everywhere like a maze of indirection. The bathroom was a labyrinth of mirrors. Surprised as well I was to find the colour of each piece of furniture in the living room a different shade of mauve. I quickly phoned a friend of mine, a poet whose career I’d always envied, thinking to make him envious of me, now that I was hanging out at Martha Stewart’s pad. But as always, when we call someone in dreams, there’s no one home. Martha knew some poets, that is she knew the gossip of their lives, but not their work. Emily Dickinson was one she tsk-tsked, distrusting solitude. But Martha was so nice. Her smile filled my dream with liquid ease as she took me by the hand and led me to a room full of her latest projects and left me to poke around. By this time I had to admit the woman had a gentle charm but was a hack at what she did. The room was a storehouse for the absurd: TV dinner trays complete with their own microwaves, beaten-up lawn furniture tied together with bungee cords, and strange unidentifiable furry things with furry ears lay strewn around. It made me think of the uselessness of misdirected dreams, of the weird abundance of the insane. Then I heard a sound. It was the ocean's low thunder and endless sigh, and I found a window (trimmed in lurid fuchsia) where outside below dark outcroppings of rock transfigured the sea to white foam. The sky gleamed an astounding blue. I decided then to leave the house, sneak out before Martha returned. I’d find the seashore and write this poem before I awoke, before my own mind came crowding back, so eager to make things itself, and flood the world with its brilliant accomplishments.

I am at a party in NYC where there are lots of poets. When I return home, I realize that I have Kasey's cellphone in my backpack. I decide that the easiest thing to do is to look up the number of the cell phone and call it. I do this and HE ANSWERS...

Woke up screaming, when Rachel asked what was wrong I said,

"I was stuck in the 80's!!!!"

I return to the hotel after purchasing a backpack at the posh store, which is found to contain a bunch of women's handbags.

After spotting the peacock outside of the window, it tried to enter the hotel room. It sticks the long, featherlike proboscis on the tip of its beak through a hole in the window. I try to cut it off, but there aren't any sharp objects in the hotel room. The hole is far too small for the peacock to enter through, so I hope that it will get frustrated and eventually run off.

Punk Rock Karaoke was at the Holiday Inn and I was there singing "Holiday in Cambodia" with them. It was a very long dream.

Dreamed that we weren't heading toward four more years of increasingly fascistic government.

I was Kerouac. Woke up around dawn, naked, looking either out window or in mirror. Ginsberg comes up behind me, naked, hardon, pokes my butt with it and says "Come on, man, let's go." I say "Man, I told you it's not my scene, I'm sorry." He sighs and berates me mildly. Something else happens but I forget what.

Dreamed I was working on a series of poems about a guy whose cat's name was Batman.

Strange whirl of dreams. One: I'm a telepath. Possibly connected to two: JL, a girl I went to junior high with, is auditioning all the boys in the class to be her boyfriend (though it seems to be the current day). We are all lined up (or possibly sitting in rows) and she is sitting behind a large screen. When it's my turn I find that there's a poem written on the wall of the screen, which I am to read to her. Figuring I'm about to blow all the other goons away, I start reading, only to find that I'm somehow unable to read a complete line from start to finish: not only is my voice weak and scratchy but I'm physically incapable of doing it (the effect is like a needle trying to track over a scratched-up record). So I clear my throat and start over, this time reading the words top to bottom rather than left->right. Also, I lower my voice, cup her face in my hand, and read right into her ear. I am very impressed with my innovation in the face of danger and can only conclude that she is struggling to remain objective.

Three: centered on a bar and a job on some remote college campus where I work. A very popular form of speed that lets you determine exactly how many more hours you need to stay up. Robyn Hitchcock frequents the bar, and vomits. My girlfriend is there and accidentally kisses DH, who graduated from my college my freshman year and is undertaking a survey, which he has come to interview me for. The survey is one question involving the tenacity of toads as metaphor for something else, but I don't remember what.

Fragment

I live in a wonderful old, wood and stone house. It looks, I don't know, tudor? Someone wants to use it in their advertising because it looks like the haunted castle
of their dreams. In fact they'd like to use the house for a film they are making.
I want to say yes, but remember that I don't own the house, I'm only renting it. I'll have to check with the landlord, I say.

Went to sleep drunk & dreamed that Weird Al Yankovic had released a version of Sheena Easton's "Sugar Walls" called "Booger Walls."

In one night:

1. Held prisoner in some kind of large dome, surrounded by all sorts of fancy mechanical anti-escape devices, we (where "we" = "me and two guys reminiscent of if not actually Han Solo [original action-figure costume] and Chewbacca") decide "Hey, why not try jumping out the window?"

2. Getting off the Fung Wah in winter, talking to extraordinarily streetwise six-year-old black kid, lying down under tractor trailer truck then worrying I'd get run over.

3. I had web-shooters, but they weren't very good.

NIGHTMARE

"Tell me why you can't sleep,"
my mother says, and the white
Christmas trees sparkle and faintly
shiver. An ornament is in my hand,
smooth and hard: a wooden rabbit
with a hook at the top.
There is another man at our table:
thin and demure with silver eyes and grey hair.
"Finally I understand,"
he coos,
"How the soul moves from a small sick thing
on this plane towards something destined and vast
on the next." His voice is a limp breeze
blowing a plastic tarp. The rabbit
falls to the floor and breaks once at the neck,
and then again at the right ear.
I know someone is going to die. I'm afraid
that it's me.
Then I'm ophelia in viscous water,
haloed by motes of light and dead leaves.
Parts of me wash away towards some violent rift,
some maelstrom or drain.


Somewhere else, a real rabbit,
No,
a hare is running through a field, a storm breaks
behind him. Sheaves of grass whip the ground
like monks' flails. Desire is there, she is tall
and dark and holds a compound bow,
smooth and black like a stealth jet.
She pulls back the metal string and shoots
an arrow straight into the sun.
The light goes red.
Drops of blood fall from the sky.
I claw through layers of sleep,
through the thick water trying to scream:
a black bird is flying through canopies
of bare branches, frantic and bleeding.
Its heart beats as a silver coin spins
on its edge, now heads,
now tails; it hits open air
and twists through the wet night.
I am awake.
the rain is falling swiftly outside.

Dying - in a hotel somewhere (possibly NH), folks staying nearby, called them: "this is it." Dad very reassuring, explained to him about the tradition of haiku poets & monks writing death poems, me pissed off because there were so many poems left to write.

Dying felt like trying to stay awake after not having slept for days. I was walking around (this was outside), stumbling, and pissing all over the place, figuring if I was dying I didn't really have to worry where I was pissing. My old coworker J walked by and I said "hey - oh never mind, you're on your way to work" and he said "I think I have a few minutes for a dying oaf" but then went to the office to drop his stuff off and didn't make it back.

Didn't die; woke up, of course - needing to pee, hand & wrist asleep. The beginnings of my death poem:

Checked in
     to check out

It is war. The debris
of art, of the clothing
of the dead fly, mystical
over the town, black
soft mica shreds, black
with red sparks, black
the Wicked Witch of
the West inravels into
the sky a creation tale,
but the impact of all
this deadly art sinks
a crater into the ground
200+ people die therein,
it's the usual statistic
I find shelter, we tell
stories, I sleep, awakened
by a pack of unknown dogs
licking my face. Earlier
a deer wandered in to my
home such as it is and gave
birth to a camel or was it
a llama they look kind of
similar around the mouth
and head, and both carry
fatty deposits on their
backs; good for traveling
in regions lacking resources.

From John Mulrooney:

A dream I had on April 19, 1994


29) Dream


I am at my desk at work and I take a call from David Koresh. I am trying to talk him out of the compound, but I am extremely sympathetic to his cause. We talk for some time until I hear on the side of the line the ATF agents breaking in and I know that it is all over. I hang up and open the drawer on the left hand side of my desk. I take out a piece of paper and take a magic marker from the container and write "Next door watching Waco burn" on it. I then take tape from the tape dispenser and post the note on my office door and go into Jon Marko's office where there is a television. I can see the fire engulfing the compound in Waco and Jon is seated at this desk with his feet up watching it. He is wearing blue jeans and a red button down shirt.

I do not make much of this dream, I simply get up and go to work as usual. It didn't even "feel" like a prophetic dream, not one I would ordinarily be compelled to write down. There is usually a feeling that accompanies a certain kind of dream, a feeling that it was sent, has origins outside of yourself, and must be written down. I didn't have this sense then. I went to work and several hours later hear a commotion in the streets. There has been a bomb scare at the JFK Federal Building and everyone who works there has been sent home, so the streets are filled with them. I hear that the Federal building in Oklahoma City has been hit, probably by the black Muslims,(who were the first reported culprits). I reach into my desk, on my left, take out a piece of paper and write "next door - Oklahoma) on it and tape it to my door. When I round the corner to Jon's office and see him with his feet up in a red shirt and blue jeans, I remember the previous night's dream.



A dream from the mid-1990s



Dream



I have this written down elsewhere in greater detail. I am walking through a very similar wood to the wood I walk through in many of these dreams. Except this time I am aware that I am at a fairground. Its still pretty thick though, woods wise. There will be a clearing every so often along the trails that is pretty spacious, but for the most part the woods around it are thick. There are little groups of people everywhere, some staying with the group, others mixing freely with the others. It is to be a convergence of all world religions and you see people of all stripes, some identifiable in their faith, others less so, there are a lot of Amish at one point and they are intersected by the Rosicrucians. There are hundreds of people along the trails all trying to get to the big meeting place. I come upon parking lots where groups of Orthodox Jews and Zoroastians and Hindus are getting out of their Minivans and SUVs and packing their coolers with food and water. The meeting point is apparently far away. I realize that I have to get there too, but also that I seem to have some sort of coordinator responsibility. I have a clipboard and items to check off. Jesuits walk by mixed in with Tibetan monks. Domincans and Witch Doctors trade information on the shortest route. I take off on a small trail into the woods, knowing that I am going the right way, well actually, it was never in question, I didn't know I was going the right way only because I hadn't thought to know it. The woods spread out some. I realize there is a figure walking behind me. I can imagine what the figure looks like: tall, maybe twelve feet, in a black cloth covering most of its body, also a hood of some sort, and possibly, a head shaped differently from a humans, but I couldn't tell. This is the figure who will help me with my task. I need to make sure there will be enough port-o-potties and parking and medical tents and all myriad types of logistical matters. The figure and I discuss the matters practically. After a while, I say "I know who You are…" sort of coy and sly, The figure grunts which I take to mean "Okay,…out with it", "You're the Muslim deity Allah" I turn and the figure shrugs as if to say "Okay, …you got me". The strange thing is, this doesn’t interfere with us one bit. I turn right around and go back to discussing the logistical plan.



A dream from the mid 1990s



5) Dream



I am going out to my brother's place of work to cover a shift for him. He still works at the Dedham Plaza, but it isn't really a liquor store, more of a coffee/convenience place. I show up and the shelves are pretty much bare. In fact, the entire store is empty with the exception of a bench at the back which has a automatic drip coffee maker on it and a small rack for doritoes. Underneath this is a small dorm type refrigerator. I realize that I will have to stock the store, but as I am the only employee I am a little afraid of leaving the place unattended (I don't know how I got in). I go to the front of the store to see if the coast is clear. I do this several times and sometimes that I go there, I am at the plaza and the parking lot is outside. Other times the store is in a mall that is entirely inside. I know I have to make a break for it when we are inside, because I need to stock the store with the fruit drinks that are in the drug store across the mall that only exists when we are in the "inside" mode. I make a couple of attempts but decide to go back before I get halfway across the mall. I seem to think that it's going to switch while I am halfway across. I get about halfway across one time and a janitor who is maybe 30 meters from me says "what are you afraid of? There's nobody else here. Go get the stuff, no one's going to come in." I decide to trust him and half because I had decided that and half because I didn't want it to appear that I was more worried about my existential dillema than the security of the store, I go across the mall and pick up a milk crate full of VeryFine products and little creamers. I make it back to the store and put the stuff away. It looks like there really aren't going to be many or perhaps any customers, so I decide to read a book. I take a stool out and place it in the middle of the floor. I begin to read a leatherbound book of Seamus Heaney's work that has charred pages and is written in Latin which I seem to understand. I get to one page (some titles are from Heaney's actual work, some I do not believe are) and there is a face on the page speaking to me. I have the sense that there is something demonic about this book and the face is muttering some incantation. I put the book down when I see that customers are entering. It turns out to be Fred Marchant and Alberto Mendez. They have come to me to settle a question about the work of Neruda. I don't remember what the questions was, but in the course of our conversation, I recite all of "Amor America" in Spanish. They leave after a while and I go back to "tending" the store. At what seems to be the end of the day the boss, Tony Terrazzi (a local Dedham gangster for whom my brother did work) comes back and complains about how I've been running things. I tell him not to give me a hard time because I run a company with a budget of…and I give him a figure (I forget it now, but I added up the entire budget of the department I then worked in the next day, Something I hadn't done before…I had it to the penny) I go to leave and get on the bus back towards Forest Hills and Jamaica Plain. I get off in a place that appears to be Franklin Park Zoo, or Jamaica Pond. I am watching two creatures who seem to be half wild boar, half stuffed animal and it is impossible for me to determine whether or not they are having sex or in mortal combat or both. They will claw into one another, one slash will rip flesh and send a splatter of blood across everyone there and the next will send some stuffing floating through the air. It is a chilling scene that I wake with. But the really weird part is that Todd, my roommate wakes at the same time (roughly 4:45 am) from a dream in which he was being chased as a possible murder suspect that ended in a place like Jamaica Pond (part of the emerald necklace park system which includes Franklin Park) where he could see across the pond two creatures that seemed not quite human having a violent sexual encounter, with people watching them. Likewise my roommate Dave had a dream that he couldn't remember the first part of but that it wound up at a place like Franklin Park where he saw me looking over a cage of animals that appeared to be humans with leather skin having a violent orgy. I tell him to look at this and isn't it great. Dave also woke from his dream at around 4:45 am.



A dream from the mid 1990s



3) Dream



Okay, so I am watching the Merv Griffin show and it is alternating between black and white and color…it is also not quite hosted by Merv Griffin…although he is the recognized svengali, he merely hangs back…visible only in occasional pan shots behind the band or waiting in the wings...most of the guests are introduced and interviewed by a former airplane mechanic who plied his trade on US service aircraft on his native American Samoa. And the lap steel/Hawaiian guitar player from the band has one of those heads of birds that you often see depicted on ancient Egyptian interiors, and is speaking about matters that I understand at the time, but am less clear on now. (He is Horus, I believe) The heart of his matter was allegorical and told through liberal use of stories of old Hollywood which he seems to know very well. At times it appeared he was a zen like Ed MacMahon or Paul Schaffer…being prodded by the mechanic with a one liner of the type that would probably only elicit a one-liner in response, but instead being met with a reflective sigh and followed with a long Homeric account of some starlets rise and fall or the jealousy and greed of some producer or the corruption of some would be writer into a hack. Occasionally, the bird creature would address me personally through the TV screen, mostly offering tips for lap steel playing, explaining tricks of the great Sol Hoopi or King Bennie Nawahi, both of whom he'd also coached. I t should be borne in mind that I watch this show on several tvs which are outside without any apparent source of power…I am walking through a swampy glen that has a fairly clear path and every ten feet or so there is another television hooked to a tree with this program on. It seems to be guiding me through. I eventually arrive at a trailer which has smoke coming out of the chimney and enter and wait for my sister who does arrive and it is apparently her trailer and she mentions something about the divorce between our parents and we make some food and sit down to watch the rest of the program. When we do so, all the people on the show, band (which is a huge jazz orchestra) cast and crew alike all sit down to eat the same dish from the same plates and glasses as us, The angle they eat at is such that their table appears to be an extension of ours. The bird head guy politely hanging his head down just a bit and covering his open beak with his hand….a consummate gentlebird

Slim Goodbody came out of the closet on the Today Show. This was far less shocking than seeing him in clothes.

But he was still rocking the jerry curls after all this time.