Dream poems

Photo by USGS on Unsplash

Dreams

In black and white 
I’m a child, three or four, 
and my mother and I are lost 
in a city of skyscrapers and 
can’t find our way home. 

I’m editing a chapter, 
but I’ve lost the manuscript. 
I’m behind, always behind, 
no hope of catching up. 
I’ve made a horrible, unforgivable mistake. 

I dream of dreaming, of not waking up, 
of waking up then realizing I’m not awake 
I’m still in the thick bog of a dream. 

Unless I’m flying.
I can fly anywhere 
just inhale, 
lift my arms, 
and let the air take me.

---

This poem¹ is composed of a series of repeating dreams, ones that occur again and again with a few variations between them. I love flying dreams; they’re magical. All I have to do is inhale “and let the air take me.” I don’t always remember my dreams but when I do, when I catch them, usually upon awakening, I write them down. If you’re moved to, share one of your dreams in the comments.

I’m reading today at LitCrawl Sebastopol and signing books at Copperfield’s. It’s been a whirlwind and I’m enjoying each moment. I didn’t realize I would find reading so rewarding. I do practice. The cats are fairly good listeners, though they have been known to leave the room; Josh, however, is a captive audience. He’s actually my first and last reader of most everything I write, even these posts.

You can get my book Gathering the Pieces of Days from Unsolicited Press, Bookshop.org, or Amazon.

Thanks so much for reading, for being here each Sunday.

1. “Dreams” originally appears in Jung Journal: Culture & Psyche, Spring 2021, https://doi.org/10.1080/19342039.2021.1901473.