mysid

Reality: I was sound asleep in my bed at almost 5:00 am, lights out, hubby beside me, no computer near me.

Outer Dream: I was in my bed at almost 5:00 am, lights out, hubby beside me, reading a story oncopperbadge's LJ on my laptop.

Inner Dream (which I was aware of as simultaneous to Outer Dream): I was "seeing" the story that I was reading. (Perhaps because Matt Bomer is so gorgeous, who wouldn't want to see him?)

The story: A poet is reciting a poem he's written about an historical event from the Cold War (historical only in my dream) in which a dictator of an Eastern European country invited many of the writers and artists in his country--all of those he perceived as being critical of him--to a formal banquet. There, they were all arrested, and once in prison, they all had their fingers crushed, and then they were executed. While they were in prison, their children were also rounded up and "disappeared". Only one child is known to have escaped to the West.

Among those listening to the poet is Neal Caffrey (played by Matt Bomer on White Collar), the woman who was the sole surviving child, and me. Neal is shaken upon hearing the poem because the first line is, "Betsy Johnson and her husband Jim, went to dinner and were never seen again."

Now, before you say, "Those names don't exactly sound Eastern European," they aren't. Nor were they really "guests" at that "historical" dinner party. They were in fact, the aliases used by Neal and his girlfriend when they went to that same Eastern European country decades later to steal art. Neal's trying to figure out how the poet knows this, and why the poet is taunting him by using his alias in the poem in place of one of the murdered artists.

In the poem, it is the daughter of the fictional Johnsons who escaped and survived--which of course upsets the true survivor in the crowd. She demands to know why her parents' names weren't used in the poem.

I decide to print out the story I'm reading on my laptop (Outer Dream), but the poet (Inner Dream) gets angry and shouts at me to stop. He believes the lives of the dead artists and writers was "performance art" and that I'd be somehow dishonoring them if I made their lives static by writing the poem down. Of course, the story already is written down on copperbadge's LJ, and I'm just trying to print a copy, but the poet is a character in the story, so he doesn't realize that. He wants the poem to be spread only orally so that it is "performed" whenever it is shared. He begins to recite the poem again so I can memorize it. I've gotten most of it when...

Reality: My 5:00 am alarm goes off. All I can remember of the poem is the first line.

PS- A fitting dream for "Poetry Month", don't you think?

PPS- If copperbadge had really written it, the poem would have been a lot better.

Centuries ago, when I was in high school, our English lit text contained the poem "To Stella", written by Plato and translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It wasn't until I read Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine that I discovered "Stella" was actually "Aster" and a boy. Shelley's editors feminized the boy's name; both "Aster" and "Stella" mean "star". (Gee, I wonder why they did that?)


The Aster Epigrams
(By Plato; translation by Percy Bysshe Shelley)

To Aster I

Sweet Child, thou star of love and beauty bright,
Alone thou lookest on the midnight skies;
Oh! That my spirit were yon Heaven of light
To gaze upon thee with a thousand eyes.


To Aster II

Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled; –
Now, having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendour to the dead.

Robert Frost has always been one of my favorite poets, so it's only natural that I'd include one of his poems in my LJ this month. The only question, which poem to chose. While browsing through a book of his poety today, it struck me that this one seems evocotive of many of my favorite fanfic characters.


Acquainted with the Night
by Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain - and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
.

In Bed
Discontinuous we lie
with an old cat asleep
between our backs

where jealous children
used to squirm
wedged in between us

We grow old, you and I,
to be so equable, lying
back to cat and cat to back.
--Alice Ryerson


I saw this poem in a magazine years ago--long before my children came along, long before I was even married--and somehow it spoke to me of where I'd like to be in my life someday.

And now, for something completely different:

( Slytherins--A Celebration! )
.

My younger brother was a very reluctant reader as a child, but he would voluntarily open Shel Silverstein's books.



( Someone Ate the Baby )



I think the burp is my favorite part of the poem. :)
.

Edgar Allan Poe, just the writer to turn to when you want to treat yourself to a good scare. Granted, his short stories are scarier than his poems, but this is poetry month.

Click; re-read "The Raven"; you know you want to. (Just tell Homer Simpson to stay out of your head while you're reading.)

( The Raven )



Or, if you can't keep the Simpsons out of your head, give in to temptation, and WATCH! (Hey, no one ever said that poetry had to take itself seriously.)
.

Always one of my favorites; I just love the way it sounds!

Jabberwocky
by Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson)
From Through the Looking-Glass, 1871


'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

If you haven't already friended copperbadge, what are you waiting for? Sam is a brilliant writer, and he's proving it once again this month. While most of us are posting favorite poems for Poetry Month, Sam is posting original poems. And they're wonderful!

Go; read:
Little Known Facts
For Cathy, On Taking the Oath
For the Artist in Wartime

Update 4/16: A tragic shooting today; Sam has captured our mood. Elegy for April Sixteenth, in Virginia
.

I mentally ran through my favorite poems, choosing one for today, and then I decided that they would all have to wait. Today is my twins' birthday! And although the following poem is trite and greeting card-ish, it is about TWINS.


There's two to wash, there's two to dry,
There's two who argue, there's two who cry.
One's in the mud having a ball,
The other holds a crayon, another marked wall.
Some days seem endless, my patience grows thin.
Why was I chosen to be a mother of twins?

The answer comes clear at the end of each day,
As I tuck them in bed and to myself say,
There's two to kiss, there's two to hug,
And best of all, there's two to love!

Author: Unknown


(And yes, I do have the crayon-marked walls to prove it.)