This Dream

This dream is a moon-faced owl
shining brightly in a silver tree,
its amber orbs cups of honey
that drip sweetly in a sleeper’s eye.

This dream is a rasping call
that echoes through windy branches,
the spiky tip of a nightmare’s tail
brushing against a windowpane
illuminated with star-fall –
before it flicks and disappears
into the darkest depths of night.

This dream is an artist’s canvas
daubed with orange monkey flowers
and tufts of foxy ferns, tangles
of Rousseau strokes and jungle
noise that hums and jangles.

This dream is a singed moth,
a kamikaze insect hurtling
its body against a hot light-
bulb after waking at twilight,
a fuzzy corpse dizzily twirling
onto the windowsill of dawn.

Kim M. Russell, 28th January 2020

Image result for rousseau Tropical Forest with Monkeys
Henri Rousseau’s ‘Tropical Forest with Monkeys’ – image found on Wikimedia

My response to dVerse Poets Pub Tuesday Poetics with Lillian

Lillian greets is from San Diego, from where she is hosting Poetics today. She says that, in the course of adjusting to different time zones and California weather, she found herself humming the old Mamas and Papas tune, California Dreamin’, and thinking about dreaming: whether it’s affected by where you live, weather, time zones, career or vocation, or even preferred writing genre.

Lillian says she started to remember songs that feature dreams and dreaming, some of which she has shared with us and provided links. She asks us to take a moment to listen to them and then write poems that take us inside dreams.

50 thoughts on “This Dream”

  1. Love these different dreams….each a possibility, each described with beautiful detailed imagery. You have such a way with nature, Kim. Going from evening and creatures of the night with moon and stars and darkest of night…to the artist’s canvas blending in the surreal with wild flowers and Rousseau strokes…and then to the final night creature who is singed seeking light in the night and falls to the windowsill as dawn lights all. This is just wonderful.

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  7. Marvelous imagery, Kim, and it feels just like that. It’s like being at an amusement park and getting on different rides. I love the part about the nightmare’s tail brushing up against a windowpane, flicking it then disappearing.

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  17. I especially like the owl and moth metaphors. Owls, of course – nighttime, after all – and the flow of honey has such a dreamy quality. And the moth, with its futile attempt to make it to the light, as dreams so often do.

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  19. I found myself humming–then heading over to youtube to listen to Joni Mitchell The Jungle Line after reading this and seeing the painting. Transported to a song I used to love and haven’t heard for years by these words “orange monkey flowers
    and tufts of foxy ferns”. Thank you!

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  23. Lovely poem – you’ve captured the surreal nature and imagery of dreams as well as their weird internal logic – and really interesting beautiful images in each stanza while managing to give each one it’s own distinctive feel. Really loved the repetition of “This dream” to take us into the new venue. I particularly liked the final one – great ending bringing us back to morning.

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