Every time I start to write it,
it turns into something else
I don't remember dreams well
except for bits and pieces.
My sleep's so fitful anyway
twisting in the night.
But in this, our shared world,
I was sailing on Dr Hip's yacht, High Hopes.
Yes, me the proletarian, socialist, visionary poet
on a Renoir weekend outing
to throw the ashes of 92 year old Sixties
poster collector entrepreneur, Ben Friedman
into the ocean just beyond the Golden Gate Bridge.
The boat is full of Sixties artists and photographers
and Bruce Brugman, the Bay Guardian publisher
turning it into a feature story for his next paper.
Ben's ashes are in an old can of Quaker Oats
and Blandina, Ben's girl Friday,
still beautiful and blond,
who took care of him
all these years, sprinkles the ashes
along with a tearful prayer into the waves,
but the wind blows them around
and we all inhale the dust of the old codger.
On the way back to Sausalito I'm talking to Yana,
the feminist goddess warrior and folklorist,
about dreams and she tells me all about
her goddess with elves and fairies and shamans
and snake kissing flying ecstasy dreams.
Then I remember the dream I had
just a couple of weeks before
because it was about being on a lavish yacht
in the Bay heading into Sausalito
as a storm comes up and the waves
become gigantic, maybe 50 feet high,
rolling at us relentlessly, and we are going
up and down the backs of the waves
till the boat capsizes and I am in the water.
I swim into Sausalito crawling up onto the street
where everyone is trying to get into the cars
of a carnival Ferris Wheel to avoid
the rising water as it rushes on shore.
I get into a car with O'Reilly,
the bestial right winger on Fox News.
The Ferris Wheel is going round
and we are talking loud above
people's shouts and the din of wind and waves
about global warming causing this Sausalito flood.
As we almost reach the ground again,
he screams out, "I'd rather drown
than be trapped with a fucking socialist."
Then without even opening the door
he bursts out of the wooden car
and tears a wound in his neck
that is bleeding profusely.
I get out and see the blood
and start yelling, "help doctor! help doctor!"
louder and louder until I wake up
still screaming in the morning light.
So Yana being a Jungian thinks this dream
is very evocative but I think I would
rather have her flying ecstasy dreams any night
Can you trade dreams?
© 2003 - Allen Cohen