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The shadows are alive
with my imagination;
the dead and empty thrive
with my imagination:
Their fangs air, sharp and hot
with my imagination.
I'm soon but never caught
with my imagination.
The last coat of daylight sparks
in my imagination
and oxidizes dark
in my imagination.
Then crickets clamor (more,
with my imagination)
for in the grass there's war
in my imagination.
And when, through blades, one falls
in my imagination,
that thrum of chirping stalls
near my imagination.
This path is bare, but then –
with my imagination –
these woods are filled by men
in my imagination,
Their wind-hearts pumping lust
in my imagination.
And if mine burns hotter (just
in my imagination)
I'll blow back those fiends (all
listening,
in my imagination)
into light, and to non-existing
in my imagination.
So this twilight becomes a song
in my imagination;
dark birds, a choral throng
by my imagination,
Weaving chains before the sky
in my imagination ...
and through them I will fly
with my imagination.
Had a very dreamful day today – chased its tail-end with a pleasant run, made all the more stirring for the things I saw that weren't, once the blank shadows started spreading – 2 April 2013
ReplyDelete* Thanks Cristy R. (house on hill, road through trees – See Canyon), David K. (ceiling dome & stone heads & ardvark dead & plow – Greece/Bulgaria) and Brigitte H. (wonder in a mosquito net) for making this collage full.
… also Houdini (visualizing beyond his predicament), news.povray.org (chains) and that little bird who launched from the dog yard at Harbor Animal Shelter while I was shooting video.
I found this piece's structure captivating! It reminds me of your earlier poem "Safe Enough to Cry" because the speaker is composed of two separate entities. In this case however, it seems that both voices are of a single person, just at different levels of consciousness. Based on your comment above, "dreamful day," I came to the conclusion that as the phrase, "in my imagination," moves out from under the lines of action/description across the page and back to its original position under them, the speaker goes into and comes out of dream sleep. I find this technique very interesting as it depicts the levels of the human mind perfectly. As we go into dream sleep some of our mind's functions do not hibernate, but run at the same level or higher level than they do during conscious states.
ReplyDeleteNot a dream-sleep, but a waking dream (keep your imaginative channels open for long enough in life, you can dream without sleeping ... it's like rediscovering that magic power of childhood: seeing what you are thinking).
DeleteHappens to me every once-in-a-while (why I've never really felt the urge to experiment with hallucinogens).
I really enjoyed reading the poem “Dry Lake”. I especially liked the layout and format of the poem, as it repeatedly drew my attention to the repeated line “with my imagination”, which for me, illustrated the idea that life has endless possibilities if we set our imagination free. I think that the title has a lot of significance because it is saying that even though a lake is dry it is still a lake, meaning just because something is used up or gone does not mean it has no value. The speaker of the poem is imagining all of these scenes occurring in and around the lake even though they are not really happening. The diction and phrases used to describe the setting are very animated and vivid like “alive”, “sparks”, “clamor”, and “pumping”. Even though the lake is very different from the images described, “the dead and empty thrive” in the actual scene, because imagination is used to bring them to life. Even though these scenes do not physically exist in these moments, they exist to him, demonstrating how imagination allows us to see life and beauty. To me, the main message of the poem is that it is possible to see beauty in all things, even if they do not openly appear to be beautiful.
ReplyDeleteWell-said. Imagination can be a danger when we don't see it as such (that is, when we distort reality with our imaginations and then respond to that image as reality), bit when we remind ourselves "This I see, and from this, I imagine ...," then imagination becomes a very powerful tool in our lives.
DeleteI really love the form of this poem and the way it makes your mind wander. As the poem widens and stretches apart it is harder to read the words fluidly and this gives the battle scene the confusing and unclear sense I would think belongs to a battle. The fact that it comes back together gives it closure and shows the mind coming back to it’s senses in a way. I saw it as the mind starting with a thought then going off on a tangent, only to come back to reality, an experience I have had many times.
ReplyDelete