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

Moly

Dreamed c.1968 by Thom Gunn

Nightmare of beasthood, snorting, how to wake.
I woke. What beasthood skin she made me take?

Leathery toad that ruts for days on end,
Or cringing dribbling dog, man's servile friend,

Or cat that prettily pounces on its meat,
Tortures it hours, then does not care to eat:

Parrot, moth, shark, wolf, crocodile, ass, flea.
What germs, what jostling mobs there were in me.

      These seem like bristles, and the hide is tough.
No claw or web here; each foot ends in hoof.

Into what bulk has method disappeared?
Like ham, streaked. I am gross--grey, gross, flap-eared.

The pale-lashed eyes my only human feature.
My teeth tear, tear. I am the snouted creature

That bites through anything, root, wire, or can.
If I was not afraid I'd eat a man.

Oh a man's flesh already is in mine.
Hand and foot poised for risk. Buried in swine.

        I root and root, you think that it is greed,
It is, but I seek out a plant I need.

Direct me gods, whose changes are all holy,
To where it flickers deep in grass, the moly:

Cool flesh of magic in each leaf and shoot,
From milky flower to the black forked root.

From this fat dungeon I could rise to skin
And human title, putting pig within.

I push my big grey wet snout through the green,
Dreaming the flower I have never seen.

NOTE FOR THE MYTH-IMPAIRED

"She" in the first line is almost certainly the sorceress Circe, in Homer's Odyssey, who turns his crew into animals. Gunn's arguing he is an animal, hungry--but not for belly-food. He knows he's bestial and he wants more; transcendence, a cure.

--Chris Wayan

SOURCE: Collected Poems by Thom Gunn, edited by August Kleinzahler, 2007, pp. 34-35



LISTS AND LINKS: mages & magic - cliché wicked witches - I transform! - transformations in general - I'm Just Not Myself Today! - species-bent dreams - pigs - food - plants - abiku, hunger for the spirit world - c.12 years later, a similar nightmare by Charles Gullans: Enchanted Glass - more Thom Gunn: At the Centre & The Dump

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-Sh - Si-Sz - T - UV - WXYZ
Email: wdreamb@yahoo.com - Catalog of art, books, CDs - Behind the Curtain: FAQs, bio, site map - Kindred sites