THAT DAY

I'm reading Poet's Choice by Robert Hirsch--capsule descriptions of a couple of hundred poets he likes. Note some dream-poets who might fit in the World Dream Bank. Also read Dorothea Tanning's A Table of Content--a surrealist with two dream-poems. Then I try John Berryman: His Toy, His Dream, His Rest... Interesting wording, rhythms, they seem playful, but I have no idea what they're about. Except that under the surface humor lurks a sadness.

All this experimental writing makes me want to play too. Maybe a shape-poem?

THAT NIGHT...

Beery, bleary, in the bar, this Mideast archeologist tells me (sorry) "We made a huge find on our dig." Burrowed in a broad, low tell. But 4000 years ago, 'twas a massive armory-- fortress on the rim of an Ur-city, like an opal set in brickwall ring. Civilized folk, at least if you adore Inanna, patroness of war. Here they stored barrels of manure--farmer-prized--but when dry, powdered, scattered--explosive! Not full gunpowder, but catapulted, a blast Hell enough to scare a war-horde of mere bronze-age foes. For two generations, this muddy city-state, now mere lost dust, played king. Then the tell blew. Five hundred tons of cellared dung aflame! Globe of white fire devoured the fort, the city-state, the name. The few chance survivors rumored it to Egypt, Iran, beyond. God-wrath! Babel's likely source. Worst disaster of the preatomic world-- the Biggest Bang, and Bloodiest, as it crushed packed rabbit-warrens of clay unreinforced. For centuries, the age went dark. Forgivable. Folk, burned, dared not rear--they feared god-doom. Yet this, the biggest building boom of its millennium, and well beyond, was really just stockpiling plus bad dusting, plus... one spark.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

1. Clearly the dream wants me to write a shape-poem with mushroom-cloud verses. Given the implicit threat, I'd better obey...
2. I am allergic to housedust; it promotes inflammations. I better clean up, even if it provokes a short-term sneeze or two. Better than a buildup to...

Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built In Hell proves my dream right about both cause and scale of the biggest preatomic explosion humans ever caused: a munitions accident really did destroy a whole city! In 1917, a freighter with 3,000 tons of explosives caught fire in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The ensuing blast was fully a third the power of Hiroshima, destroying downtown, killing people a kilometer away.

Better not to worship gods of war.

EIGHT YEARS LATER STILL

Now the dream looks prescient--not looking back to Halifax, but forward--to Beirut. In 2020, a warehouse on the waterfront with nearly 3,000 tons of fertilizer exploded. The blast destroyed downtown and killed hundreds. But my dream resembles Beirut more than Halifax--a Mideastern city leveled by fertilizer, not nukes or petrochemicals.

Had the Beirut disaster happened in 2008 and my dream in 2020, the reference would be undeniable. But when the chronology's reversed...

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