World Dream Bank home - add a dream - newest - art gallery - sampler - dreams by title, subject, author, date, place, names

Thirty Days

Events 1980/4/14-15, written 2012/7/17 by Wayan
in memory of Beryl

My friend Beryl led me deep
into Ventana Wilderness. We
floated, flirted in a thermal pool
    Two alone.

So we thought. But not. A crazed
eye voyeured, and a hungry gut
growled for luscious gorp. No bear:
    One man.

My pack the madman stole
For breakfast. Took along my past:
March's noctary of dreams. He stole
    Thirty days.

My boots, too, the madman stole
so I limp home through flintsharp hills
on lacerated bleeding soles.
    Thirteen miles.

Trailhead. Rangers soon confessed
Bear-man ran a monthly raid
for food. So he a hermit stayed.
    Thirteen crimes.

Welcome home! Our landlord stole
our future. Notice: home sold!
Quaff the home-made mead. We have
    Thirty days.

I know why this wave. Because I gave
in to her wild urge, in the simmering
rockwalled spring; into Beryl climbed
    Thirteen times.

But to my shock I found she was
Cool and slack as a corpse inside.
Skin and eyes alive, but just
    Thirty degrees

Celsius. Tepid as a newt. Can't be.
Alarm bells clamor in my veins.
I pull out of her and pool to run
    Thirty yards,

Newborn nude and dripping. Found
past gone. Like Christians dipping in
Baptismal baths, erasing older sin.
    Thirty coins.

March was gone. I felt not cleansed
But flayed for giving in. We're friends
not lovers. Knew it to be wrong.
    Seven sins.

Do I believe I summoned scourge?
Absurd. And yet a surge of chill
Flooded through me like a knell.
    Twelve years

Later, Beryl's dead. Malignant wave
slow-gnawed both breasts. Not saved
by guillotine. Foreseen? We have
    Five doors

to our short and brutal world. Or
a sixth unsure. My dreams foretell
dark things. But that day, dream and un
    Were one.

NOTES My life's like this--time-tangled. Handy for picking stocks, but hell on friends. And on my sense of certainty. Tragic, comic, fated, free? That turtle in The Lathe of Heaven sums it best for me:
"Crossings in mist."


LISTS AND LINKS: dating - sacred springs - swimming - hot & cold - sex - thief! - hermits, loners & crazies - out of control - house & home - precognitions & ESP in general - poems - a related hot-tub dream: Things Wash Off - more dreams of Beryl - more Big Sur-reality: Tigerborn - Why do folks have rotten luck in Big Sur? Ask Robinson Jeffers, Shaman - Jung's examples of non-dream synchronicity: Superimposed and Pudding & Fortgibu

World Dream Bank homepage - Art gallery - New stuff - Introductory sampler, best dreams, best art - On dreamwork - Books
Indexes: Subject - Author - Date - Names - Places - Art media/styles
Titles: A - B - C - D - E - F - G - H - IJ - KL - M - NO - PQ - R - Sa-Sk - Sl-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites