Write a dream, lose a reader, so they say. I have a dream to report and it contains a lot of nudity. Would you keep reading for the promise of nudity? But without photos, only more or less descriptive text? What if the text contained enticing words like proud or well-formed or the very exciting word, wobble? I'm thinking about the Greenaway film Prospero's Books: "Knowing I lov'd my books he furnished me from mine own library volumes that I prize above my dukedom." The dream was a dukedom of books. Books and naked people (both genders, many ages), paper, wind, water and, somehow in a wet windy environment inimical to candles, candles. I won't record it here anymore, don't worry. Still reading? Here's a poem by Merrill about a dream. An old favorite. Try not to nod off! I hope you are enjoying your day.
Read about Merrill at the Poetry Foundation.
The Mad Scene
by James Merrill
Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,
Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust,
Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen.
Fingers were running in panic over the flute's nine gates.
Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed
To have us wrung white, gnarled together, one
Topmost mordent of wisteria,
As the lean tree burst into grief.
from Collected Poems
Alfred A. Knopf, 2001
-- Eric Bourland 27 May 2010 for BAP
Read about Merrill at the Poetry Foundation.
The Mad Scene
by James Merrill
Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,
Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust,
Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen.
Fingers were running in panic over the flute's nine gates.
Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed
To have us wrung white, gnarled together, one
Topmost mordent of wisteria,
As the lean tree burst into grief.
from Collected Poems
Alfred A. Knopf, 2001
-- Eric Bourland 27 May 2010 for BAP
Prosperos's Books by Greenaway...what an exquisite dream in and of art...and if one is viewing it for the first time (or anytime) find the biggest screen possible..it is so deliciously layered in an encyclopedia of stunning sets, costuming, staging and "gust, form and lightning bite". A real "mad scene".
Thanks Eric for pulling these two works together...you have much added to the enjoyment of the day...
Posted by: bill hayward | May 29, 2010 at 08:34 AM