“I have a hard time reviewing poetry. Every collection, it’ll have a few you love, a few you hate, and a bunch you won’t remember. It’s the most horrible thing I can think to say about something that someone pours their heart into. Imagine someone saying this about his three children. I love the one, the other one I hate, and the middle one I barely even remember.
I’ll include a favorite here. Maybe that will help anyone on the fence make a decision.
Drawing You From Memory
I seem to have forgotten several features
crucial to the doing of this,
for instance, how your lower lip
meets your upper lip besides just being below it,
and what happens at the end of the nose,
how much does it shade the plane of your cheek,
and would even a bit of nostril be visible from this angle?
Chinese eyes, you call them
which could be the difficulty I have
in showing the flash of light in your iris,
and being so far away from you for so long,
I cannot remember what direction
it flows, the deep river of your hair.
But all of this will come together
the minute I see you again at the station,
my notebook and pens packed away,
your face smiling as I cup it in my hands,
or frowning later when we are home
and you are berating me in the kitchen
waving the pages in my face
demanding to know the name of this latest little whore.
On this topic, I have a weird dilemma that I’m hoping the Goodreads world might be able to help me out with.
This involves dreams. So if you hate hearing about dreams, just re-read that poem again.
I have a problem with dreams. Sex dreams in particular. The problem isn’t what you might be thinking, though. The problem is that it is impossible for me to have a dream that’s remotely sexy.
I have the LEAD UP to a sex dream all the time. Me, a lady. I assume it’s a human lady, sometimes it’s hard to remember when I wake up, but let’s just say.
Things are about to happen, and then in the dream I think to myself, “Wait, I can’t do this. I have a girlfriend. This is wrong. I’m putting a stop to this.” Then I do. Then I wake up.
This happens regardless of whether I’m knee-deep in a long term relationship or have been single for years. There is no difference. I’ve never been married, and I’ve never cheated either. So I don’t know where this is coming from.
So, Goodreads peeps, any ideas?
Oh, and I’m not super interested in the interpretation of these dreams. I should have mentioned that up front. I’m really looking for advice on becoming a better…uh…”closer” in the dream world. Because at the moment, this is as good as things get. She may be a faceless dream mistress, but damn it, she’s MY faceless dream mistress who I really, really hope doesn’t turn out to be a cat woman or demon.”