new year’s eve sonnet

(for MKI, as always)

Hey Omicron: the letter of the hour!
You’ve brought another covid Christmas: who’d
have thought lightning could strike again so soon?
but never mind, we’ve foiled your plot to sour
our Stollen — hopped the last of the outbound flights
to paradise, where naked hugs and sweaty
dancing are de rigueur, the restaurants ready
for parties of ten plus, no rez required!

’course we’re not all so lucky: lockdown wounds
are here to stay; while absent friends on screens
remain; let’s hope tonight to drown our blues
in toasts to family lost, who flock our dreams
like larks at dusk, ’til waking see anew
the chance for change in twenty-twenty two.

new year’s eve sonnet

All my brothers locked down, the sound of lighters,
of bottle openers, bottles popped alone
that foam and spill across the empty wide
expanse of kitchen floors unmopped. A home
in name but not in deed, indeed a jail
that native sons know well, a reservation
held in reserve, revisiting the names
inscribed on birth certificates, a nation
of orphans stumbling in twilight. Is hope
obscene to our imagination, or can
we dream a fiery green without dull smoke
and scour clean our hearts, as we have our hands,
’til double twenty penitence is done,
emerge absolved in twenty twenty one?

illusive

Gazing in the shimmering pond, Alice thought she saw another world; dimly, past the rippled clouds, she could almost make out the face of another her, with bottomless liquorice eyes, and a downy tear dropping down from sculpted cheek to rivulet past Wednesday's best . . .

tools of life

Art Installation Seen in a Dream

The installation is distributed around the edges of a large hall. Every 10 feet or so is a life-sized statue of a famous historical figure: Gandhi, Qaddafi, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, Obama, Ghengis Khan, Jesus, Muhammed, Chairman Mao, Andy Warhol, etc. Each one is clothed in their single most famous and frequently depicted garb—these are famous figures not as they are (or were) but as they are famous.

In between each figure is a set of tools of life: the everyday trappings of some distinctive cultural time and place; the workaday tools, accoutrements, and furniture of some typical person fulfilling a standardized cultural role. Items include bits of furniture and representative features of domicile or workplace (a chair, a hearth, a doorframe, a countertop, a grass hut, an obelisk), clothing (an apron, clogs, hats, a pipe, jewelry, . . . ), and tools of work (a typewriter, a gun, musical instruments, a broom, . . . . ). Representative cultural roles range from a 1950's American housewife (a kitchen counter, baking tray, vacuum cleaner, duster, . . . ); a Papua New Guinea tribesman (penis sheath, spear, drum, ceremonial mask, . . . ); an Eskimo (igloo, mukluks, spear for ice fishing . . . ); a citizen of ancient Rome (toga, chariot, tile flooring, . . . ); etc.

The alternation between historical figure and tools of life is completely random.

Each life size historical figure is fully posable. Visitors to the installation are encouraged to move them and pose them amongst the tools of life: Ghengis can may be decked in 1950's housewife apron and posed in the act of vacuuming the living room, for instance; Gandhi arrayed in flight controller's chair with headset poised to speak into a microphone; Mao wearing a horned viking helmet, standing majestic at the prow of a longship.

jazz band seen in a dream

The frontmen are two muscular identical brothers with close cropped hair. Perhaps they are Hawaiian, or Filipino? They play the melodic portion and sing in harmony.

Behind them, the rhythm section consists of seven majestic polar bears, standing on their hind legs and shuffling back and forth in unison. Each one wears an open breakfast cereal box on his left foot and a tambourine around his right ankle. As they shuffle together, the contrast between the shaking cereal and the rattling tambourines creates a subtle but grandiose rhythmic accompaniment.

dream

I'm backing a large red convertible slowly through dusty streets. Not quite the middle of nowhere - a water tower in the distance, the town just out of sight (across the tracks, over the hill, a presence in the background). The convertible is dusty and old and I'm backing it very slowly, uncertainly avoiding the occasional car parked by the side of the road. Becoming more steady I start to accelerate.

Suddenly, at the intersection at the end of the next block, I see a group of enormous figures slowly processing down the cross street - a giant human shaped figure with enormous antlers, four stories high; a couple of articulate stuffed-animals (a bear, a bird), almost as high (20 feet?); an animate stegosaurus skeleton, less majestic than the others, smaller, more ominous.

I leap from the car and huddle behind a rickety fencepost, a treetrunk, hoping I'm not noticed. A couple of the figures break from their majestic line and slowly start prowling down the street on which I abandoned the car. I run hunched and creeping from tree to tree through the undergrowth, the dusty half-park that fills the block, trying not to be seen.

Just out of sight, behind the tree in front of me, a munching sound, rustling, a large presence. I pick up a long, thin branch from amongst the many fallen and piled around the trees. Coming around the corner, I see it's the large stuffed bird, towering over me. I prod it with the branch which it snaps at hungrily, beginning to eat it.

I rush past with another branch, leaping ten feet into the air, but behind it, suddenly, the stegosaurus skeleton - attempting to feed it the branch, it clearly wants more, and its jaws snap dangerously close to my face as I fly by. Crashing to the ground, I run full tilt back toward my car, not looking back, uncertain if the stegosaurus follows or continues on its way.

In the distance, piles of much smaller stuffed birds arranged in rows, forming a tall triangle between the roots of a giant tree, sing a sad, wailing chorus. A similar pile, again organized into a triangle between the roots of another tree of stuffed teddy bears joins their voices. They are covered in dust, oversized, animate in a sad, slow manner. A dirty lament.

on inception

Lucid dreams can sometimes produce the illusion of reality. A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), for example, was based on a series of articles about young men who experienced terrifying dreams, refused to go to sleep, and later died in their sleep. For them, the terror of their dreams became so real it killed them.

More recently, Inception (2010) used a similar setup (entering the dreams of others) in order to explore the possibility of an idea being implanted in one's subconsciousness while one was asleep and dreaming (the "inception" of the title). In this more focused investigation, it is argued that dreams within dreams ("deeper levels" of dreaming) provide access to deeper levels of the subconscious, and thus facilitate the planting of a new idea.

I've experienced dreams within dreams on several occasions, and there are two features of the phenomenon which Inception certainly got right: 1. the dream within a dream tends to be more surreal / bizarre / "unrealistic"; 2. after waking from it, there is a feeling of reality, one has just woken up, which may then be subverted by further dream weirdness. This is a feature which has been exploited to great effect in a variety of places in popular culture—not just the aforementioned movies, but also genre pieces such as Neil Gaiman's Sandman (e.g. the character trapped in an eternal sequence of nightmare wakings at the end of issue #1).

But there is a weakness with the dream within dream approach to inception—if one does succeed in convincing oneself that one is awake, then whatever is remembered of the levels of dreaming that had occurred is judged a part of dream land.

Compare this with another phenomenon: dreaming about dreams. Suppose for example, one experiences a rather vivid and lucid dream, which closely adheres to an actual event, changing it in relatively small respects. Then suppose, as sometime happens, after brief awakening, one dreams a more surreal and bizarre dream, a subconscious response to the incidents of the earlier one. When one awakes from the second dream, the certainty that one is in fact awake, and that the preceding events were in fact dreamed, is not evidence against the reality of the previous dream (in the way it is when dreams are embedded). In fact, if the second dream was sufficiently vivid, one can become uncertain about whether the incidents which inspired it were produced by reality or a previous dream . . .

Of course, the effect depends crucially on the plausibility of the first dream. The essential point here is just that arbitrarily plausible embedded dreams receive an evidential refutation which arbitrarily plausible dream-inspiring dreams do not. Suggestion for a future inception technique?

john-a-dreams

Dreams are imperfections of sleep; even so is consciousness the imperfection of waking.


Dreams are impurities in the circulation of the blood; even so is consciousness a disorder of life.


Dreams are without proportion, without good sense, without truth; so also is consciousness.


Awake from a dream, the truth is known: awake from waking, the Truth is—The Unknown.

~ Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies (1913)

e k station

A sci-fi epic seen in a dream. Blue faced prison guards, metal corridors jutting chaotically with unnecessary rivets and never used equipment. A prisoner roughly handled (they're worried he'll be boring in white). The warden - a head with two bodies, awkwardly placed one before the other below his blue face. An uncomfortably looking special effect - he prances awkwardly before a black curtain. Suddenly, an incongruously slick space battle, lasers blazing, a large asymmetrical orange hulk of wires and bulkheads pursuing a fleet of tiny winged spheres, slick and shiny galvanized steel-blue, sharp contrast to the matte rust of their awkward combatant. Star Wars as envisioned by Georges Méliès.

fragments of a long dream

An elaborate dinner party with family and friends in an exclusive restaurant's private room. I notice that a tentacle of the tiny squid I just cut up is still twitching and take this as a sign of the restaurant's quality and freshness of fish. The table is covered with whole fish of various exotic sizes and shapes. Although these appear to be just decoration, my attention is suddenly drawn to the fact that there is still some life in them. In fact, they appear to be eating each other. And, not in any modest manner; this consumption proceeds by twos and threes. One large fish manages to suck down two of its neighbors and a passing horsefly simultaneously through its stretched open mouth. Folded writhing, thick and eel-like bodies disappear smoothly into its maw. All of us at the table seem to be observing this sight with wonder, even glee. Another sign perhaps of the lavish excess of our restaurant. Suddenly, however, the mood changes. A severed boar's head leaps from below the table onto its surface and begins to devour fish, frothing at its jaws. We are under no delusions that the boar's head could possibly still be alive, and its spastic jaws offer a more threatening sight than the fish's stretched mouths ever could.

Soon we're all huddled in a corner. An entire cornucopia of severed animal heads beneath the table has begun to bounce and writhe, but the boar's head is by far the most dramatic. It's enthusiastic bouncing thrusts it again and again in our direction; we're juggling it in fear and screams from one to another, trying to avoid its spasmodic, random chomping.

Suddenly, the vision fades, and one of our number recalls that raw Red Snapper can be hallucinogenic. We all sigh in relief as we realize the entire event (beginning even with the still-writhing squid) has been a mass hallucination. Looking again at the table we see the elaborate live fish decoration was a mere painted tablecloth, and the frothing boar is a mere design in the carpet.

Driving all night, an elaborate university with archaic stone spires and large vaulted halls. A friend of mine administers an essential exam, hundreds must take it every hour thus, even in the middle of the night, they must distribute and grade tests. He comes into a room with the stack of exams, while casually flipping through them he notices one has an unusually low number grade and the letter grade of E. The graders are in a flurry over this exam; whether out of fear of what the student will do or deep concern for same's future wellfare they desperately regrade the exam in the hope the error has been theirs.

In the morning, walking the enormous campus grounds with my parents. Some festival is going on and we see a number of bizarre costumes and clusters of people watching street performers of various sorts. A young man walks up who I know is senior to me, but for some reason I cannot bring his name to memory. He is dressed in lederhosen and is clearly participating in the planned festivities. I introduce him to my parents in the awkwardly slow manner of one who hopes the other party will interject his forgotten name at the appropriate moment. He recognizes my Dad's enthusiasm for singing and, walking towards the corner of an enormous medieval gate upon which there is mounted a large plasma screen, begins singing. The brief refrain repeats and others seem to know the words. First my Dad sings along, but soon a crowd has gathered, most joining their voices to some degree. Clearly, we have become one of the festival's events. These are the words to the short refrain:

who can deny
that every grove of trees
should die

My senior has been toying with the monitor a bit and it comes to life broadcasting an odd scene as the crowd sings the above. On the screen, apes with intelligent eyes have been netted and bound into tree tops. Not thick trees, but actually bundles of sapplings bound together to form cages around the struggling apes. We see only these flimsy prisons waving precariously in the breeze, but the scene implies impending execution.

During the singing, I am puzzled by the word "should" in the refrain. Yet the passion with which all are singing it, a kind of sad resignation combined with righteous enthusiasm, somehow makes the word "should" bear the meaning of "will."

dream

An elaborate hotel so vast that a circus has been able to pitch its big top in the lobby. On the run again from narcotics agents and various shadowy manifestations of parental authority I slip under the corner of the tent. As I am friends with the circus performers they aid my escape, and soon I am lost in the labyrinth of ladders, small wooden platforms, curtains, and rickety old pianos which make up the backstage area within the tent.

Curiously, everyone seems to carry iPOD like devices, all of which are equipped with the ability to produce tiny rubber stoppers. A necessity given that tiny holes (approx. a mm in diameter) appear in almost all pieces of glass. These devices are regularly used to stop these tiny holes, though frequently, say if the piece of glass in question is a wine bottle, not after they have been used for other purposes . . . .

dreams of work

When one dreams of work, sleep is no haven at all. One wakes unrested and anxious ~ ill-prepared for the long day ahead.

dream

My three roommates and I are at a funeral when suddenly a fight breaks out. Soon the air is ripped with bullets and we have to evacuate. My roommates decide it's time for them to buy guns too, and plan to do so on the way back to our apartment, where we will spend the rest of the afternoon in leisurely repose. As we leave the cementary, they invite three new acquaintances, with whom we had bonded at the funeral, to meet us there. Arriving at our apartment, after the purchase of firearms, however, we find that these three had invited their own friends, word had spread, and an army of hip young gatecrashers pour into our place as we open the door. Narcotics are plentiful and my state is far from relaxed. Leaving the party in frustration, I break down and buy a gun myself, before wandering into a small antiquarian bookstore. Or rather, the storefront is small, but on the inside the place is vast. Suddenly, over the loudspeaker, a voice announces that the sequel to Meet Pamela is on two-for-one special. There is a mad rush to the appropriate section of the store: little old men are knocking each other over in their enthusiasm to get to this deal. I am swept up along with the crowd, but with firearm at the ready, in case another fight breaks out. We sweep past the grocery section, the toy section, sporting goods, there seem to be fewer and fewer books about. Two female police officers in skintight, shiny leather are running towards me with guns out. They think they are here to arrest me, but I think they have come as an escort. Running up to them, without breaking stride, I grab them by the shoulders and we run together towards the stairwell. Rushing down flight after flight, each one getting longer and steeper than the last, I realize the cops are not here to help, but are trying to hold me back. By sliding on the bannisters, I manage to get ahead of them. Finally, I reach my floor, and return to my apartment. Now the place is overflowing, and in my rage, I expell the revelers. Like Jesu at the temple, I shower them with rage. But with each group expelled another shows up. Now, however, word has spread so far that old friends begin to appear amongst the throngs. Soon my rage has succeeded in expelling the majority of unwanted attendees, leaving only a small group of close friends with whom I had long fallen out of contact.

I show off my newly acquired firearm, then we lounge naked on ottomans for the rest of the afternoon, eating cake, smoking narcotics, and reminiscing about old times.