Dream Trough

Did you fall in again? It’s not a river or a closet or a book or a collection, but an old, nearly hollowed out horizontal tree body with closed ends. Somewhat like what you might expect deer to drink from in a forest. And therein float our dream fragments, our poor befuddled brain tries to make sense of them at night, sort of like a clearwater soup with the day’s ambiguities, partial or hurried observations or unanswered questions floating around like alphabet soup but bigger.
The other night I rose from one bed to go to sleep in another and had been thinking that week about the old style Selectric typewriter balls, the ones with changeable fonts. Much like the way I collect Meyer lemons in the yard, I imagined in my dream carrying these Selectric type balls in my T-shirt from one bed to the next. Or maybe they were completely loose typewriter keys? Half-way down the hall I realized there were NO loose fonts at all, and certainly not being carried in my T-shirt front. Just more floatables in my Dream Trough, randomly grabbed by this poet’s subconscious mind hoping to catch maybe a loose fish or make something useful from either lemons or typewriter balls? Creativity often works like a dark soup of measured possibilities.

Pharaohs and Angels

Pharaohs and angels
came to me as a phrase
at the local deli at lunchtime
watching a video on
my cellphone of a cat
dragging her bedding
up a flight of stairs.
Cats are from a far off land,
they come here to be
pharaohs and angels.
All the cats I’ve known
fit that description.
Every one.

If You’re Lucky

If you’re lucky
you’ll find yourself in Berkeley
in your 74th year on University Avenue
in your 47th year of doing this stuff
and with your peers
it’s your turn at the Open Mic’
and lucky for you
your wits are still intact
and the Corona with dinner
whets your whistle just enough
and you’ll find out days later,
you too were recorded.
Yes, you too were lucky.
And soon it’ll be up on
youtube.com.
Life’s Just a John Prine Song

He was blowing blue notes through the end of his horn,
wonderin’ why in the world that he had been born,
and I found him all alone with his music in the bowels of BART.

He said, “Life’s just a John Prine Song, it’s sad and it’s funny,
when you’re livin’ on love ’cause ya ain’t got no money,
and your teeth are all achin’ and sayin’ ‘Goodbye’ to their neighbors.”

I said, “Kleenex your heart, and help Phoenix your friends,
you’ll never know whether your fortunes may end,
and your heroes are homeless when they’re makin’ amends,
and Love’s on the backroads bein’ made by your friends.”

He said, “Life’s just a John Prine Song, it’s sad and it’s funny,
when you’re ridin’ on bald tires, ’cause ya ain’t got no money,
and your life’s just a scream cause you’re wonderin’ which one’ll go first.”

I said, “Kleenex your heart, and help Phoenix your friends,
you’ll never know whether your fortunes may end,
and your heroes are homeless when they’re makin’ amends,
and Love’s on the backroads bein’ made by your friends.”

He said, “Life’s just a John Prine Song, no…matter…how…it…ends.”

(An original Peter Bray song see it on youtube.com, recorded at the Listen & Be Heard Poetry Cafe in Vallejo when it was still there on Marin Street!)

Epilogue to “Cat Hair in Wing Tanks”

Last week I said, “To be continued,” but unfortunately I haven’t heard from its songwriter originator, so it’s a passing metaphor for now. – pb

Peter Bray lives, works, and writes in Benicia
and has written this column since 2008.

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