cumulus

i had spent a couple days
thinking
was the sunset more beautiful
in arizona
where it has an orange brilliance
or in the high desert of texas
where it has a beautiful rosy glow
to match the pink mountains

but, in the dream
i was in between
and it wasn't sunset
the sky was blue
with clouds
that somehow swept and towered all at once
and i was in a room
walls foot thick plaster
(or stucco or adobe)-- i really couldn't say
and there were bullet holes
going clear through the wall
i could look through them
like they were peep holes

it reminded me of the alamo
not like it is now
it's a really nice attraction now
but, when i was a kid
it was like
well, here's the alamo
just an old building on the street
and it seemed so small
and there were bullet holes in the wall
and it was hard to remember that a great battle
davie crockett and jim bowie dead

remember the alamo

they had rallied at the battle of san jacinto
san jacinto monument so large and overpowering
for a small child
to stand at the top
hair whipping in the wind
santa anna captured there

jars and markers

i dreamed
my brother gave me songs
in mason jars
open the lid and listen
and i had a small bottle around my neck
with a beautiful song
no one could understand the words
and there was more
but i can't remember

and there was a girl
who colored her hair
with colored markers
it was wild
but then they ran together
and she didn't like that much
but her hair looked kinda blue
i don't know if i knew her

and there were conversations
and there was sex
regular and straight-forward

i wish i could remember more

pool, tub, blanket

the first part was kinda sketchy
or rather
my memory of it is, sketchy, that is
i was giving gifts of clothes and jewelry
to my top five performers
current, under-rated, and, mostly, film
some were grateful
some were leery
one girl was very leery
but then
i was a yenta
and i introduced her to
someone perfect for her
and she forgot all about the gift

next
i was in a pool
i was doing something
some sort of underwater
near out of body experience
like when i did flips over and over when i was a kid
only different than that, but with thrashing
and then i surfaced and climbed the ladder, blissed out
but as i walked around the pool
i saw my friend
floating
unconscious
or drowned
and i called her jenny
she looked like mia kirshner
but more like she looked in exotica
and she was kind of jack-knifed, her ass the only part above water
and i pulled her out
milky-eyed
i pressed the water from her lungs
and then i pressed my mouth to hers, and blew breath into her
she awoke, aroused
and low
there was writhing and kissing and altered visions

then
you had dozens of young girls
beautiful nubile adoring
following you
your every move
worshipping you, almost
and i thought:
well of course
and i thought:
i hope it makes him feel powerful, godlike
strokes his ego
because that's important
i want him to have that
and i turned and started to go
and then i saw you
wrapped in two blankets
sitting in a tub of water

well, i was in a pool

i was in a pool
and i came up under one of those
float raft lounge thingies
there was a woman on it
i don't know who she was
i don't even think she was anybody
she was more like a symbol
i was trying to lift the raft up enough to get a breath
and she didn't want me to
it made me viscerally remember something i had forgotten
when my step-mother held me under water at the pool
not long enough to actually hurt me
just long enough for me to need to get free to breathe
and i jumped out of the pool
and i think what i did was scream
but i'm not sure
because i sort of disappeared for a minute
but when i came out of it
there was hair
everywhere
like my insides had been filled up with wet hair
it stuck to the tiled walls
making cryptic patterns
maybe spelling out something important

then
i was a pregnant teenaged trucker
and i don't know all the details
but i know i hadn't been taking my health all that seriously
not like doing anything stupid
but just not taking it easy at all
pretty much doing everything normally
and i was practicing some game
which involved blowing into something
using lung power
when suddenly
no breath would come out
not anymore
and i sunk down beside my rig
and i called my people
i said:
i know i act like i don't need anybody
and i'm sorry if that comes across as rude
i don't mean it that way
it's just the way i have to wind myself up
to keep myself going
and i'm really bad at asking for help
but, i do, i really need you

i had a transformation dream

a little girl
read a magic book
and as she said the magic words
she was transformed
into
a bull
like ferdinand out in the field eating grass
a donkey
like pinocchio on the island of lost boys
she tried to become human again
and she fought and swirled
into
a twister
trying to become
a little girl
once again
sometimes she wasn't aware
sometimes it hurt
and it went on quite a while
but when she was still again
when the dust had settled
she was a woman
but she had a monkey tail

to follow a drop of rain

there was a kitchen
large, with very high ceiling
architecture circa 1900 maybe
there was a big country table
huge windows
everything one might hope for in a kitchen
and we were papering the walls
using strips of paper
maybe 5 inches wide
there was a pattern
but i can't tell you precicely what is was
the color was a dark dark ultramarine blue
verging on a midnight inky indigo
and a ruddy russet-y red
in some places the paper was going right up
each piece against the other
in other sections
it was spaced
in some sections
there wasn't going to be any paper at all
it was all very deconstructed
but i don't really know what to make of that
my inclination in real life
would be to just paint it
whatever pattern would be way easier to paint
than to try to figure out how to hang wallpaper straight
much less some deconstructed pattern thing
it was really beautiful so far though
there was something about it
it looked like
well it was hard to tell if it was being put on
or stripped off
and there was raw ship lap board showing
but the color wasn't faded
it was intense

then
i was in a room
that looked a lot like a studio of a family friend
and there was a radio program
that i was listening to
had listened to
and was being discussed
all sort of simultaniously
in the dream
it was about following a raindrop
from where it landed
in a jack in the box parking lot
through all the rivers and aquifers and etc
on it's journey
and i'm pretty sure it ended up in oklahoma
but i have no idea why
and when i came out of this
tri-phasic trance
i had:
3 cerulean blue paintings
just little ones
that were a series: a river runs through it
and i had given an award
some really important impressive award
that i hadn't actually known i had authority to grant
to the radio program about following the raindrop
i was slightly startled
and disoriented
like i hadn't actually been in the room
but someplace else
and i wasn't sure
if i had painted the paintings
or what they meant
but the color was beautiful

when i woke up i was dreaming about buying lingerie-- for me-- curiouser and curiouser

i dreamed several things
which seemed, in the dream, somehow
to be related to one another

there was a yellow car
a pale creamy yellow
it was old, but well maintained
not a sports car, nothing fancy
but more like a late 70s pontiac lemans
than an 80s oldsmobile cutlass
and there was some sort of dragnet
closing in on
well, i thought it was on my man
and i was waiting for some sort of sign
but then, suddenly
they tagged the car
and i had to abandon it and go
i kept running over in my head
whether i had used poor planning or poor judgement
or just plain procrastinated too long
but i decided that i really had done the best i could
with the information i had, when i had it
it just sucked about the car, whatever

then
i was standing in a building
a tall building
with someone who, in my dream, was my brother
we were trying to look out the window
this whole section of wall was window
but it was roped off
maybe the floor wasn't safe to walk on
that's what they wanted us to think, anyway
i think it was being remodeled
there was that plastic stuff covering the window wall
and my brother was trying to see something
something we had seen before
something that meant something important
but i'm not sure exactly why it was important
it was a building
maybe a hotel
maybe an apartment building
and i'm not sure if the name had changed
from all those years ago
but now the name seemed to be: marseilles
or possibly marseillaise

then
i was watching a fashion show
in a department store
in the lingerie department
and the model, who wasn't all that thin
had on these lace panties
that were like a wide band around the hips
without much other fabric
they were like the boyshorts version of a g-string
if you know much about women's undergarments
and i wanted them
but i thought i wasn't up to them
and i turned to look at a full coverage kimono
and a woman turned to me
maybe it was the designer, maybe just a senior sales staffer
anyway, someone with authority of opinion
she said to me: no you make a mistake there
that wouldn't do you justice at all
too much fabric will only make you seem larger
you really need to have a little fun with it