30 Poems in 30 Days - Eleven: The Museum of Dreams

I looked to my journals for inspiration for today's poem. (Did you notice I got an early start writing, rather than waiting until close to midnight? One reason is that I'm tired, but the main is that The Tudors premiere is tonight. I'm 'enery the 8th I am, 'enery the 8th I am, I am! 2nd verse, same as the 1st!)

I've recorded my nightly dreams in journals for years. I like the idea of a museum for dreams. Wouldn't it be fabulous to go to a museum and see Einstein, Elizabeth I, Cleopatra's dreams? I think I'll have to create a dream museum, virtual, of course. But for now, I'll offer a poem that captures a few of my night visions from recent years.

A dream museum reminds me of Nick Bantock's incredible The Museum at Purgatory book. I first learned of Bantock by colliding head on with his Griffin & Sabine series! and I've kept up with all things Bantock, since. I even won a illustrated mousepad when I entered his website contest. Lucky me!

The Museum of Dreams
Danna

I.
a pervasive layer of salt covers our bodies
as if to say, learn about yourself
the pelicans rest on the water's lip,
none of the birds start, or dislodge
themselves and take to flight with our arrival,
we walk past them, further down the shoreline
strewn with detritus and driftwood
don't say anything, he says into the wind

II.
a man walks through shallow lake water
suddenly veering sharply into an alcove
to see if water moccasin
have come down from the mountains,
as reported
he sees a dying
fish twisting in the shallows

III.
even with all her exaggerated flaws
she has become a shadow figure,
a sun-faded paper silhouette
she whispers to the darkness in her room,
diminishing flesh, is itself an exalted thing

IV.
a woman forages through drawers and closets,
she is in a strange house looking through
other people's possessions, searching
for how it all began, until
a glimpse of herself in the mirror
arrests her attention,
she asks her reflection,
when is my mother coming back?

V.
while the man isn't looking
his wife gives birth to a mole
it is hairless and blind,
he sees what she has done
and decides to love it anyway

VI.
we're in a foreign country,
it is dark and we are lost
we find a tunnel, filled with light,
it is a birth canal
for the living and the dead
we follow it down, down, and down,
and soon discover
in the land of the dead,
spirits are hungry for blood

VII.
a woman swimming against strong current
in a small ocean, turquoise
water tucked in a sacred space
I am not your servant and you are not my master
is the only thought she is capable of thinking