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| ( if you want a song playing in the background - watch this for 1min20, then start reading https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MejbOFk7H6c ) |
We have to imagine
what we want
Within the bounds
Of evidence:
I know you're sleeping.
That's why you don't
feel hungry think-
ing of me like
I imagine you'd like
to. For we
Can't control what
We dream, asleep:
we can only plow
the topsoil into
The fields we want.
All the rest is
Deep and set, dense like bed-
rock (it quakes
When it has to
& stays def-mute
Otherwise). Drills can make
Wells, but they
fill with blood. So
We imagine:
On the surface, I see
you smiling,
Wanting to fly
Over and say,
“God, Josh – you're lovely. How
Could you be
alone, slipping
into a dream? ”
For those of you who've never dug a well (in a literal sense, that may include me), don't worry: they're supposed to fill with water when you get down to the water table - they get muddy. Not bloody.
ReplyDeleteWhen you start digging wells in your head though, trying to get in deep enough to find that humor, it all gets very messy. And that deep slurry is a bloody mess, I think. Changing a mindset is harder than just seeing it. And seeing it is harder than just digging down.
You really have to be thirsty.
Thanks to Damian (the path), Kae (the Bridge), Phil (the pup), Jacquie (the tiger), and Christy (the fountain) for filling this collage out.
I liked how you used the metaphor for difficulties of digging a well to describe the challenges behind changing one's mind set. I also found the format of your poem to well fit the message you were trying to get across. Each progressively indented stanza is followed followed by a falling one, matching well with the multiple drilling attempts that make little spurts of progress but ultimately fail due to the messiness of Mother Nature.
DeleteI was just wondering who "you" was in the second to last stanza.
"You" was that current crush ... the dream-version of her, in that malleable topsoil of my mind's imagination.
DeleteThe poem's not about changing one's mind set, per se, but about trying to imagine someone we desire such that (a) it's supported by what we know is true/probably-true about them, and (b) it makes us feel content -- perhaps more so than would the actual, factual truth.
That's called dreaming (which is a different kind of "having" than actually being loved by someone...but sometimes in life, it has to suffice for a while).