The Best Of... discussion

I know a lot of writers disapprove of dreams in lit, but I don't see why not; dreams are also part of life. After a discussion, this early poem came to mind and still seems like a gift:


Blue Shaman

Somehow he fell into my dream
his skin stained by sky full of rain clouds
his limbs wrapped in shattered lace
powdered the same stony color

Behind his shy beaked face
narrow braids arched and trembled like feathers
Under his chin his hands
steepled in supplication

His angled head looked in my face
a look delicate coy and patient
then tilted back
Can you see?
Eyes closed mouth open he waited

I bent down to look past his teeth
deep down his throat where I saw
a pool of white gold that moved
like light off a distant window.

He showed me what he could do
Down on his hands and knees
Between and around looming furniture

he galloped fast and faster
The Danger! I held out my arms

Insistent and loyal his dance
to some power I knew but denied
Just once his hip grazed an end table
so lightly it never tilted.

Uups. Supposed to be 'sky full of rain clouds' (maybe too obviously).

Very vivid, Kallie.

That must have been an intriguing dream! The poem certainly is.

I like it. I like that he's coy and shy. I never thought of a shaman in that way, it takes him out of any trance, which is different. Also different is his horsing round the furniture, which makes him childlike.

Did you write it just after you woke up from the dream, or did you try to recreate it sometime later?

I probably wrote the dream down, and the poem pretty soon after. There was a group of us; we'd meet and read what we'd written, often just lines . . . So I'd just begun 'thinking' in that way, and had a lot of memorable dreams at the time -- vivid, as Renee puts it. It's interesting that more dreams like that come when I'm writing/reading poetry every morning, which hasn't been possible for a while. Hope to get back at it after this masters is finished. It's a great feeling, isn't it? Not happy, necessarily, but deeper, layered, complex.

I like it a lot. Your descriptions tickle my imagination in all the right spots.

Will wrote: "I like it a lot. Your descriptions tickle my imagination in all the right spots."

Thanks, everyone. Your comments are encouraging.

You dream well. :}

New meaning to "sweet dreams"

Who am I to disagree? :}

Just spirits in the night . . .

Fire and Water...Forest and Glen....