Undeferment
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
“Harlem,” Langston Hughes
I am poor
I guess
I have the words
And some temerity
(rubbed
with facts)
To say
And I wonder
If the poor
Can dream or
May
Because dreams require
Some funding
To live as vision
And idea
In the daytime
Or
After sleep whenever
Some apparatus
Finally
That might build something
Even with reason
And approval
Yet
After food
That is
And safe water
Shelter
And compulsory education
Voting
And some will say
We shouldn’t
Dream
Citing something like
Chains of being
Or in spirit
Shall have a realm
Not here
For sure
Rather
Then
To pass a rule to take
Those dreams
Our dreams
Away
Citing
Some might say
The classes as distinctions
Though we have only made them
Out of balsam
And so not in the realm
Of real
Lasting places
But only signs to keep
The oligarchy ready
And plutarchy
As well
Because
Oppression manufactured
By the way
Has begged our revolutions
But peace
Better ideas
Should prevail
From all
Of us
And all of us allowed
The dream
To have it
Work it
And to play
With
Only barricades
That any might encounter
While
Waking
So we may all
Dream dreams
Asleep
Alert
Without deferment
C L Couch
“’In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy . . .”
Peter talking to a crowd, citing Joel
Acts 2:17(a)
NIV
Photo by Kostiantyn Li on Unsplash
How We Might Be Made
In a cloistered class
Someone could
Ask
Maybe
Inspired by
A word
Where do we live
Inside
And how might that relate
To what’s outside
Say
(say)
How do we
Live inside
In a war
And then after
If alive
In a time of troubled
Unbelieving peace
Inside
While
Waiting for what happens
To break and ruin
Outside
Once again
How does we prize
Our own
Ambition
Against all the things
In the world
That
Take the pursuit of
Dreams
Away
How do we act our dreams
After war
Even a war with nature
Though
War with each other
With humanity
Seems worse
But after trauma
Living trauma
Then in such a group
To begin
A response
Well
(well)
We hope
We can
C L Couch
Photo by Julia Rekamie on Unsplash
time and temporality
(for dreamers and for planners)
we look
we hear
we wonder
as we wander
like the song
out under the sky
or being still
having gone nowhere
perforce
or by design
the need to have some time
an hour or a day
in which we do not move
but traverse everything
inside
and inside
where shall we go
what shall we
hear
what shall we
see
what shall we smell
or get a taste of
what is the other sense
what shall we taste
though we may
also travel throughout
time
slip into other states of being
as our possibilities
visit other worlds
that we make
for moments
that never happened
though we may go there
for the possibility
the changes
the resolutions
never having taken place
except there
in what we visit
on the inside
that time and life
under the sun
never allowed
waking issues
that are not solved
out here
but we should
do this
this is good
a friend of mine might say
about ideas
when we planned things
together
in the day
this added time to dream
might engender
visions
three dimensions
only
but good experiences for
our constituencies
starting with
those of
one
then two
and who’s to say
the dimension of the spirit
or the spirits
will not be joining us
the outer life
the inner life
somehow touched and satisfied
through dreaming and
then
through waking
c l couch
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky,
how Jesus the Savior did come for to die
for poor ordinary people like you and like I;
I wonder as I wander, out under the sky.
adapted by John Jacob Niles
photo by Ferdinand Stöhr on Unsplash
"Sunset in Vancouver"
(x = space)
x
x
Dreaming the Mushroom Cloud
x
I suppose it’s because
I knew the movie
Would appear today
And got me thinking
Stirring something
Too
As a surprise
x
I dreamed I saw the cloud
The mushroom cloud
Rising above the horizon
Of the tress
Near the place where I was standing
And I knew
Inescapably
The effects would be upon us
x
I could be atomized
The irony of the name for the bomb
As a result
(in addition to the cause)
Or I could be set
In winter
The awful winter without food
Or safety
And were the people inside
In the building near me
(in the dream)
Ready for a new companionship
Survival from the blast
And all the blasts
And then I woke
x
It’s been a while
Since I had a dream like that
I don’t think
Since childhood
When I looked up on summer days
To wonder if a silver missile might
Arc out of the blue
And toward the ground
x
No matter what the season
Counting
It was the famous cold time
For a war
x
C L Couch
x
x
(I think it’s today that the film Oppenheimer premieres)
x
Photo by Alen Smola on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Twilight Narrative
x
Long dream this morning
The kind when I wake
Then fall asleep again
About Bill
We took a trip together
Which we had never done
Some kind of blazing thing
A celebration of
The Midwest
Though we knew each other
In school
In the East
x
I got mad
And sad
Because I wanted to talk
With Bill about something
Happening to me
That I didn’t like my life
In Harrisburg
Wanting to say so
Wanting encouragement
Even advice
And he’d said nothing
x
I challenged him on that
A while later
(long dream)
And we got nowhere with it
We could perform
But we could not talk
Not for real
x
I woke up, realizing that
Bill would not go on another
Trip with me
And that was doubly frustrating
Mad
And sad
And then I remembered
That Bill
Had died
A brief while ago
x
My college roommate gone
With earthly friendship
Following
And I am sad
And sad
And sad
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
x
Bill liked root beer, Dad’s; root beer is brown and dreams are wavy
x
(x = space)
x
x
dream state
x
shall I write on a dream?
dreams work out subconscious
so I guess there’s something there
in mine
in my dreams
there have been nightmares
mostly, I hope they’re good
while I’m inside
the world changes in there,
naturally
sometimes I know my way
sometimes that’s not an issue
it’s the people I encounter
from the past
from the present
people I do not know
as for color, I don’t know
we’re told we dream in black and white
so if I say that’s yellow
is the truth of it in what I see
or what I’ve convinced myself
I’m seeing?
dreams are strange
I guess I need them
they might have been the first visitations
formless forms given form,
hidden words revealed
all because we sleep
confusions for
an easy price
x
I’m thinking now
I should have made this formless
or changed the shape many times
or something
as a waking example
but then when I’m awake
like many who dream
and recall anything,
I’m trying to clarify
unlike a scientist
but one to whom
everything had happened
x
as far as I know,
I’ve never died in dreams
I’ve fallen without an ending
to the fall;
sometimes I’ve fallen and then flown
and, after, felt the use
between my shoulder blades,
the stiffness from the muscles there
that that would be needed
for the use of wings
x
sometimes I’m frightened, after
most often, I’m sad
sometimes nostalgic
warmth or sometimes hope
worked its way through
the pastiche
x
I don’t know
how God’s involved in dreams
mine are a mess:
I don’t see how
an angel as an agent
could be talking through them
but we have precedents
in messages of prophecy;
to have a dream with clarity
must be something
as impressive it must be
troubling,
a contemporary (waking)
source for fear and trembling
x
c l couch
x
x
photo by Tamara Menzi on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Dreaming Impossibly
x
This is for real
But every now and then
I must imagine
Like one Lewis or the other
Things that cannot happen
Happening
x
A hole
Through which
The world is further out
Horizons wider
Air that moves just right
Enhancing breath
Progressive fields
That do not have to tire
We can take them slowly
Discovering
Along the way
x
Water we can take
It’s safe
And not worry
About returning
About returning overall,
Well, that’s another matter
After exploration
After delight
And rest
And learning
From this impossible day
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by Florian Rieder on Unsplash
x
(x = over)
x
x
Dream Over
x
I dreamed
About my brother
Last night
Then my sister
And my mother
Who was sick
x
I tried to get ready
Asked my sibs to help
They would
(they did)
I tried to fix things up
As best I could
Then went to work
Where I was testy
With the people
There
x
Dream over
I woke up
And feel tense
Old long since
x
C L Couch
x
x
Photo by thamara prada on Unsplash
x
(x = space)
x
x
Finally, an Affirmation
x
Sometimes to dream
Is stupid,
Because
I think that
Of myself
Who am I to dream?
How can I make the waked-
Up version happen?
Who smiles on
Me to make it happen?
x
Dreams spark on the
Inside
(where there is heat);
They are
A matter of
The inner life, the life
We have when we
Are at our best
Or at our rest—sometimes
I’m not sure
Which is which
x
I share this with you
Because
Our dreams have value,
And we should have them
(some we’re
going to have, anyway)
And the truer ones
The ones that form,
Form again,
Take hold
x
The dreams that we
Should have
That the ideal revelation of
The universe
Approves
x
C L Couch
x
x
Gloomy Forest in the Fog
Photo by Jay Mantri on Unsplash
x
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