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The Real Made Dream

There are dreams
of which we are made –

The lake shimmering silent
by evening light

grown full with
the emotion of dying and death;

the blue-deep set of mugs stacked
beside a favourite tea canister

under the oak-finish cupboards,
where you once stood –

The real made dream
by dawning time

when the bedroom radiator
creaks with shot pocks

into life.

Where no thing exists
no dream will come.

Brilliant Jimmy.

Hi Jimmy ~

This feels quite different from the very detailed and graphic, scene- and story-creating poems I associate with you. Even with the specificity of the details you've included here, there is still an elusiveness that comes with dreams. You've managed a balance of the two, so that it still feels like a dream sequence from which you wake, and I can hear the radiator's pop. I like the way you shift your way through this with your images.


~ Lizzy

yes ,the water is at boiling point,
With no where else to go,
Round and round in its own System
with its Frozen Embryos.

What is the significance of the oak being fake (oak-finish)? At least that is my interpretation of an "oak-finish"; as a lesser wood that has been stained to imply oak.

Were you attempting to just be literal with reality?
If "yes," it doesn't sit well in the poem as a non-significant fact.
If "no" I'd really like to hear why you created this specific image to enhance the poem.

Laurie

id say he means the mirrored image of our selves
not real.wrong way round, mixed up.
layered.false face.???

Laurie.
On "oak-finish..."

It is real. That is, the actual cupbaord has, what we call over here, and "oak-finish", meaning that it has been finished, or completed with an oak veneer.
The memory (dream) is of someone who actually stood where a tea canister is actually under, or beneath an oak-finished cupboard.
I believe it enhances the poem because of the actuality and reality of the object itself, remembered or recalled in a dream or memory. The point of the poem is to explore what the relationship between reality and dream actually is.

The actuality of the objects in a particular place triggers the dream, memory, so that the person/the beloved/the hated one (whatever) is recalled, as an "objective correlative" (TS Eliot).

Jimmy

Hey Jimmy~

In the past, you've been more than a 'diary entry' poet.
I give you the Literal on the first few drafts, to explore internally; but after that it becomes about what is best for the Poem.

Your readers only reality is the Poem. We don't know (or care) whether or not you are stating a physical fact. We want to inhabit the poem and we want it to have been written so that everything is significant and works aurally and visually. IMHO.

I think that phrase is really clunky and the explanation of being Your reality is not important enough to excuse it.

Jimmy O'Connell wrote:the blue-deep set of mugs stacked
beside a favourite tea canister

under the oak-finish cupboards,
where you once stood –

"oak-finish cupboards" is a slow read and I'll repeat myself: clunky.
You have a good visual of "blue-deep" mugs, although I don't understand why not: deep-blue, unless just to avoid the cliche.

Just looking at the stanza, I see I might consider: "cherrywood cupboards where you once stood"
for the internal rhyme (and splash of red). But wouldn't stop on my first instinct...
Can one really stand "under" a cupboard. It would have to be quite high. That visual gives me reason to pause, also.

regards,
Laurie

Okay Laurie.
All you are saying, really, is that you would have written a different poem, and in a different way. That's just fine... for you...
What I have written is not perfect. I accept.
BUT............... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The "I" of the poem, that is the person who is living in the narrative of the poem, may not necessarily be me, Jimmy O'Connell. But then again, it could be. What matters, in this poem, is the experience of the "I".
What I, as the poet, am exploring is the reality that we, as relating, living, loving, hating, expressing, emotional human beings, often use, or need, the "real" (that "oak-finished" cupboard, which so annoys you), as a prompt to reawaken, to relive, an experience which was in the past but still lingering in the present. And... that the annoying cupboard is necessary in order to have dreams and memories of people/relationships, which though in the past, have significant significance now.
So, if by chance I come across a "tea canister", it can spontaneously, without prompting, prompt a memory that I linger over. And I linger over it only because it has some unique significance to me, the "I".
Out of this experience is prompted a poem, or work of art... that's what art is, as I see it. The creation of an object (poem, music, dance, piece of sculpture) which encaptulates a significant moment. And, this is the point of my poem, very often it is the very ordinary, the very "clunky", that inspires the "I" to... whatever reponse is appropriate, which could be, wonder, awe, revulsion, inspiration, anger, sadness, rejection, confusion, etc etc etc etc etc.... or any combination of the list...

I chose "blue-deep", not to avoid cliche, but rather to challenge the reader to visualise/imagine as deep a blue as they can, and that's how blue the mug is/was. It wasn't just a deep blue mug. It was more than that. It was blue deep.

Standing "Under the cupboard" gives you "reason to pause". If that is the case I have succeeded. In this part of the world one can stand under a cupboard, stand beside a cupbaord, lie under the cupboard... or whatever tickles the fancy... or the memory.... or the dream....

Always a pleasure to give you the skinny on my inner skinnings !!!!

Jimmy

Okay Jimmy~

Jimmy O'Connell wrote:All you are saying, really, is that you would have written a different poem, and in a different way.

This told me I need not read further, if that is all you got out of what I said.

L

Jimmy~

I apologize for piping up and putting my two cents into your poems.
I just realized my problem is that I am disappointed in myself for having made a bad judgement call in the past regarding your work and am trying to get that back...It's not you, it's me.

L

So, you are saying:
You liked/didn't like my work in the past? And now regret/confirming your opinion??

I believe that my comment: You would have written a different poem and in a different way, is valid not only for you, but for any poet. Heaney/Yeats/Kavanagh/Wordsworth.
They have already written this poem in a different way.
The theme is universal.
The expression is unique.
So.... you too would have written this poem in a different way... need not be taken as an insult, or a rejection of your or your critique.
What I have difficulty with Laurie is you being disappointed that I didn't write the poem you wanted me to write.
I don't want you, or anyone else, to write a poem, according to my demands. I give you the freedom to write whatever poem you want to write in whatever way you want to write it.
Please don't be disappointed if I don't come up to your standards... and when I try to explain how or why I write the way I do, I do so only in hope that you will appreciate more what I am trying to do. If I continue to disappoint you then so be it.

If you have read down this far I want to say that even though you don't like/agree with what I have written, composed, I still appreciate the fact that you take the time to read and critique.

Jimmy