for the past six months or so, i have been writing down my dreams in hopes of finding something that could hold them together. during the first week of august, i was at a poetry workshop called HomeSchool in which i got the chance to spend time with some amazing poets. each day we would move around with our cohort of 10-12 other poets and work with a poet of admirable repoire. one of those poets, Brian Blanchfield, asked us to come to his session with a dream written down. unfortunately i didn't bring my notebook of dreams with me to Hudson, where the workshop was taking place, so i was left with one of the dreams i had during that week. we were to find a line in the writing of that dream and write a poem in which each subsequent line, past the original line from the dream, was an attempt to answer the "why?" of the previous line. when we got stuck, we were to repeat the original line. a short example would be:
we were to dig
[because] we had shovels
[because] that's what i found in my hand
we were to dig
...and so on. that line "we were to dig" was the start of a line in a poem for me during that session, but not quite like the example above. since homeschool, i've been trying to get further into my dreams, trying to diligently write them down without judgement and sculpt them later. i'm searching for books on dreams so if you have any ideas, please let me know.
i thought this might be nice to share these scribblings, so in the coming weeks, when a dream arrises, i'll send out a couple of my dreams into the steem and hopefully something will precipitate.
for now, here's a dream i had the other day:
dream - 23/8
i was in a city with lots of hills. it was not my city, i was traveling. i was staying in a hotel. i was waiting for alex (a friend) to arrive. the hotel was modern. lots of grey, purple - soft lighting. i think my parents were there i'm not quite sure. alex arrived. i gave him glasses too small to see through the lenses on the sides (up and down) without turning your head to center what was above, below or around you. the frames were rectangular octogons. mine were gold-rimmed but had the same problem with the lenses. i don't normally wear glasses if my eyes aren't tired. i got alex black-rimmed. the lenses were thin, but black rims on his dark skin looked good. i don't remember if we were speaking spanish, i remember thinking at one point that i would ask 'donde estas' but i don't know what i actually spoke. i lost track of alex. i spent a lot of time in a taxi, with a meter. i know i lost track of alex because i was trying to find him while riding in the taxi. it was a cross-city ride. i don't know what city. it could have been chicago, but i haven't spent more than a day in chicago in waking life. i know we used google maps. i watched the blue dot expand and contract like waves around a circular beach - i guess that would be called an island. once i had alex on the phone, we tried to map where the other was. i was frustrated and so was he, his voice got exasperated like it does when he knows i don't understand him or we just miss each other conceptually. i took a long breath like i do. i had stopped the taxi, under the assumption i would circle back to get him. the meter kept running while i was on the phone. the driver was patient. i don't remember anything else about the driver. i woke up confused. i woke up thankful to know what city i was in. i woke up relieved.