In a dream last night, I was visited by one, or two, or three white-haired gentlemen I apparently should have known, but who were only vaguely familiar. They knew my name, but I did not know theirs. They seemed to be waiting for me to remember. Finally, I confessed I was at a loss, upon which one gave me a hint, a rather long and mystical-sounding title of a musical […]
Child that I am, I see the wonders of this world as one great, living, moving consciousness; and, from snail to star, I see each discernible part as an expression of that consciousness. I do not see them as higher or lower forms, or judge them according to a scale of narrow, preconceived worth. Neither do I see myself as being conscious in an otherwise unconscious world, or a world […]
I’m a fictional character of my own making. I’ve lived this fiction all my life, adding to it one thought, one word, one sentence, one page at a time. And while it isn’t my intention to deceive, or to create a world of make-believe, by the very process of living I do create such a world. This is my reality. And a beautiful one it is, because it includes you […]
Based on what I’ve salvaged here thus far, it would be easy to draw a number of conclusions about me; however, I advise against it, even if they seem obvious or reasonable, and even if you’ve known me for years, as a brave handful of friends and readers have. I do not say that you don’t know me; I say, rather, that there is much more to know. What I’m […]
I’ve lived in Oregon for more than half of my sixty-two years, yet rare is the day I don’t think about the place of my birth. And there are numerous dreams. Back in 2014, this one became a poem. And yes, there really were nights like this. As Any Thing That Is Another night in the old hometown. The streets we used to roam. The lights are out. There […]
In the same letter, the friend who told me about the Gombrowicz diary mentioned seeing deer in the quieter, more secluded areas of the campus of the college where he works, and how those lovely creatures live in their own version of time. He meant it in a philosophical way, but it’s also true in the scientific sense. Every species on earth experiences time differently than we do, and sees […]
According to my notes, this poem was written long ago after I awoke one morning from a troubling dream I couldn’t quite remember, and with a terrible sinus headache. If the dream was the first act, the poem is the second, and reading it is the third. Or maybe writing the poem was the second act, and the poem is the third, making reading the fourth — unless the poem […]
From a note written at the time: It’s interesting to me that my attempt to recall and preserve this dream — the doing so of which seemed important because of the presence of my father — would take this form, rather than that of a narrative, as so many of my other dreams have done. The fact is, that is what I first set out to do, but the images […]
Up at three-thirty this morning, after reading Spanish for half an hour, I turned to some of the dreams I recorded in 2008 and 2009. Several of them involved my mother and deceased father and my childhood home, and in several others there appeared old school friends, as well as a friend I had at the time who died in 2010. So many strange, familiar situations, filled with longing, color, […]
In his dream, he wandered the narrow, winding streets of an ancient city. Along the way, he saw an old blind woman selling nuts and grains, and a young boy carrying fresh warm bread to customers as yet unknown to him. Hearing his footsteps and smelling the bread, the woman bade him stop; this he did, bowing theatrically, as was his wont. Speaking in a singing sort of way, he […]
