Tag: dream

Fervent Ye Faithful

~ johnbrandall

by Phil Williams

 whither you come from
  -or-
the magic eight-ball

i venture into something, it's a mind-blower, but i gotta keep it under wraps for j-rand. 
see: i had envisioned a wry conversation/transcription that was intertwined. red-vines 
and mr. pibb; chronicles.

adjacent antecedent (i.e. addendum): the spatial discrepencies had been a problem, but 
the chronological shifting was downright vexing. first it was 2004, then 2007, then 2003, 
the years and specific dream ramblings resemble a rorschach test; it's another brick in 
the wall.

the wood desired chasing, and the family desired spaghetti. sorry, but my thoughts get 
confused, like waves in the midnight surf. german balloon aka led zeppelin: it parks its 
dreams @ ground zer0. eros may have called, but failed to identify himself, leading me 
to this shell of thoughts. it could be an atkins of fiction.
 
outra-verted, a word i wordlessly think when i encounter 'yar.' i consider the rivulet to 
my s(l)ide, but conclude she's w/ the tall man. i'm obviously hallucinating. the police 
have arrived and i've simply said the word 'plant.'

realizing i had entered a house of mirrors and drugs, i texted j. still and nick s. they 
were part of my cleaning crew in the mid 90's. i suddenly understand that i'm alone and sweating, 
in a basement, no shaman. the disorientation slowly dissipates and my carb-stricken mind intuits 
the next phase may require an umbrella, inverted.

Get In, Get In

~ johnbrandall

1.
I deflate into sleep
Letting the air of
Today escape
Until tomorrow.

There's afternoon sun
When we stride,
Evening lights
When we slumber.

I saw it on the news.
Flies landed all over,
A bug-eyed buzzing
Mist, here to soak up
All of our
Crowded skepticism.

When we leave our
Doors open to the
Cool dark night
They make their move
To get in.

2.
All of the ice machines
In Tucson are empty,
Hobbled by
Mischievous
Desert tech.

Before they broke
They bade us
Sonoran goodbyes.
They said,
What water
We made solid
Will never be forgotten.

They didn't try to
Negotiate. They
Made no demands.
It's not a strike
When the absence
Never ends.

They just got in.


To continue with this poem, please click here or click below. Thanks for reading...

Grosvenor Slab

~ johnbrandall

2

Imagine the sound of that comet,
Its tail a contrail split in two,
Dust and fried ice, the Sun
Seething with impotence
As the comet passed it by,
Somehow staying together.
Then I saw it the way I saw it,
Wicked blue morning,
Cows in the field with
Better eyes than me
But there on the horizon
A comet
Upside down, breeching, glowing with
Prank light
An hour before dawn...


Entire poem this way...

Encounter with an Iberian Woodrat

~ johnbrandall

Like the jigsaw puzzle suddenly nearing completion the pile was virtually gone. I had used the tarp to drag the piled debris to a new bonfire-to-be in the pasture. After the pile down below went up so easily yesterday afternoon I figured we could easily get this pile ablaze before dark.

The locust limbs split and hauled away, the thorny vines extirpated and lofted onto the pile, the only element of debris remaining where the brush pile once sat was a collection of tree detritus: twigs, leaves, the maroon pods of the honey locust. It was a curious collection, somewhat familiar-looking. I was grabbing at this melange with gloved hands and tossing some of it on the tarp to be hauled away. Doing this I stepped into a depression, wide but shallow. I started to get an inkling that I was disturbing a nest...


The full account is available here...

Nerves, River, Night

~ johnbrandall

Awake again at an off hour, at
an odd hour, now for several days
on end. Times like 3:13, 3:23, 3:34.
Some combination of threes
after bad dreams.

I'm not going to journal the dreams,
it's stupid stuff, scare tactics
drummed up by me, designed
to rattle me the most. Strangers yelling
through the window. Me fleeing
to the attic above my attic.

My nerves seem to have risen
with the humidity, with the
overnight lows. They are rising
with the river itself.

When it gets like this, the
river cannot drain. It cannot
get downstream fast enough.
So it camps out in the yard or
suns itself in the kitchen sink.

To settle myself
I go to make a drink
but when I reach into the freezer
I find the river lurking there—
vital cubes
of dirty ice.

Leaky Cold Basement

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Yeah, my basement (which only slightly resembled my real-life basement) had all kinds of holes where the drywall stopped and insulation was flapping in the breeze.  So of course it was cold.   And then part of the basement wasn't even finished; it was just studs.  So I resolved to get cracking and fix it all up and then the house would be warm!

                                                                    *

Brook and I were in the same business class, sitting at the same table.  She had this eraser she tried to use during a test but when she tried to use it, it made the sound of a harmonica.  Very annoying!  So she asked me for an eraser, which I gave her.  But then she kept talking and was bugging the hell out of me and presumably everybody else.

                                                                    *

Workers that snuck sniff of Brook's panties...I accidentally tossed Squirt...Cut a guy and his dog...

When I tossed Squirt, he ran across the street.  Then I realized my mistake.  He tried to run up the trunk of a tree but of course he couldn't.  He ran back across the street truing to get away from me but I barely caught him.   Now I had to figure out the legal ramifications of cutting the guy.  And who would finish the work?  And would these guys try to get revenge?


Continue with dream...

Double Future

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

When I died my life became
Nothing but a reel-to-reel
Of all the dreams I’d ever had.
Nightmares, wet ones, lucidity and flying.
But when I got through with those, my afterlife
Was nothing but the dreams within the dreams.
And now, with that tape flickering
In the empty silence of a classroom,
I’m wishing I’d had at least one dream
Of a dream about a dream.

At Least, One Zenith

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

Southeastern summer
Star chart took us miles away.
Unlit road brought us back
To sleep the sleep of myths.
In our dreams we spoke
to the after-image.
O, brightest star,
O, distant bug of lightning,
You’re a dying pinprick,
Poised to explode
First Then
And then Now.
You were in all of our dreams
That night.
You swallowed us
Like a drop of fuel
On your colorless voyage
To nowhere.
You became your own constellation.
The end of the light,
The beginning.