a poem about a dream i had

[datasuspect]

so it was that one day all consciousness merged and became one. no split between the waking and dreaming lives, the world was blended and no one needed to sleep anymore.

you didn't have to leave anymore, arrive anymore, look, see.

it's when i started looking for you in the multilevel parking garage filled with late model cars. greenish fluourescence gave the pallor of death to living things in this catacomb, but i knew you were there, or at least somewhere in the adjacent building.

but i found you, standing between two cars lost in reverie, gingerly touching the incongruous spot where highly polished plastic grew out of concrete like a flower.

let's go. the bars and grills are always better near to the railroad tracks.

and there it was: the industrial bottoms. the gleaming city towering above on top of the cliffs, but i brought you to the industrial nightmare place where the trains lived.

they breathed, moved, the snaking steel grinding against steel. smoke pissing out of manifold holes.

you need to be careful. there is no clearance for a man here.

the passenger train stood gleaming. it was waiting. soft amber glow diffused through the lace curtains. this was the ONLY way out.

through the workman tunnels to the low town. mansard roofs and 1890s facades. a greasy window promised cheeseburgers, but i needed to shit.

so we went in.

the cups were large, the fries crispy and seasoned, and it was time to get to that train.

[catbert836]

1. You might want to post this

in the Writing Group, Poetry Group, or both, and consider submitting it to our literary e-zine for the fall. Your poem is quite interesting.

[datasuspect]

2. another one

a thing acted upon


history did its violence. that's why there were no people left with faces. the ones that remained didn't even notice us, in fact, they appeared to us as shimmying blur fields, the closer they came, the deeper our sadness became.

having negotiated the service tunnel network to the last viable platform, we sat there, comfortable enough not to speak, just to sit there and wallow in each others's introspection. it was still time to go.

but the platforms always switch and they develop layers. outbounds, inbounds, expresses, and locals, too many trains, too many technicians, and no direction. it would suffice to take city transit to the 1920s suburb place where the little shopping strip was still extant. my grandmother was supposed to be there with my father, and that was where we would find our lodging, a place to live in the residence hotel. it's only 2.50/per week and they still have weekend social activities in the center plaisaince that lets us into the park.

everyone forgot about this city around 1929 and history just stopped, we won't need social security cards. it is not a law yet there, and never will be a law.

and the hotel has nice large windows overlooking the roundabout.

drug store.

[idgiehkt]

3. exciting

and I read this with Cars by Gary Numan playin in my head too.

I like it. It's like you are taking the parts that most people skip and giving them more prominence in the poem than most people do, and the people less.

[datasuspect]

4. that's how my dreams are

like visual representations of the states of things punctuated with interaction: relevant, staggering interaction that happens at correct moments, but the scenes are laid out like movies set in composite cities.

[idgiehkt]

5. I like the second one just as much if not more.

and I am a lazy reader sometimes, too. But I like how you write about the inanimate things, I can see them in my head. Cool.

[datasuspect]

6. thanks