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Surf the San Andreas

dreamed 2008/8/21 by Wayan.
1: the Gate of Trust

Gate made of driftwood at the beach. Sketch of a dream by Wayan.

I wake predawn in a cabin near the beach.
I slip outside, goaded by an urge
behind my eyes, to find two looming gates.

One is high-security: spider-eyed
with cameras, and a laser tripwire:
faint red thread in the clear dawn air.

And the other? Silver driftwood
framing empty sky.
I step through there.

Americans! Right. A paranoid gate
whose sister welcomes all--
twin portals to the midnight sea.

But twin gates are our specialty
here in dream. Their ancient names
were truth and need, or horn and ivory.

Now it seems they're fear and trust,
or fear and truth (a hornier thing!),
or just... simplicity.

2: The Ship of Brick and Beer

Three public art pieces at the beach in San Francisco: a replica of the Kremlin, a ship made of brick, and a ship of giant toilet-paper rolls. Sketch of a dream by Wayan.

Mad mansions cling to San
Francisco cliffs above the sea.
"Sacrilege" says my eco-purist brain
But a simpler me
says "pretty! See the Kremlin shimmer!"
Spiral golden onion domes
and spires Gaudi'd admire.

Next door, a great ship wades in surf,
made of... brick? Mock-ups, big as beds!
The mockbricks make Faux Freighter seem
dilapidated dinghy. A cubist fifty-foot
beerbottle hulks on deck, crowning the wreck
's delusions of rowboat nongrandeur.
A sign pontificates "This installation
references universal human experience:
the Morning After the Wild Drunk Party."
Postmodern liars! I didn't go, allergic to
human food and drunken fun. Did you?
Man, that is one clunky Titanic--
and they won such a hunky grant for it!
Is all my esthetic response "What a waste"?
Nope--I'm grinning too, in selfish hope,
for if they fund this Postmodern piss,
they might fund even me, a Prearchaic.

A second stranded blocky ship--this time
not of bricks, but great soft packs
of toilet-tissue rolls as big as BART.
Mordant modern art! Subtle,
subtle, subtle as a fart.
My confidence is on a roll!
For a town that helps such clowns fulfill
visions banal will help me too. All I need do
is to the great hog-trough apply.
They have, it seems, an infinite supply.

Mid cliff-cottages we stroll,
my girl and I, in sun of noon.
I break my waterbottle on a step.
Warily sweep shards, glass ow!
And then out bursts a song:

"How noble I am, protecting all the bare-
foot tourists with flowers in their hair,
who visit our graceful Kremlin Shore,
the Ship of Toiletpaper, and
the Ship of Brick and Beer."
My song's a lie. Postmerdean art
Draws no one! We're alone out here.
3: Fault-Surfer

Bearded old man surfs impossibly on the still, glassy face of a lake. Sketch of a dream by Wayan

My car wades in Crystal Springs
spang on the San Andreas Fault.
The road is flooded, nearly a foot;
The car awash, and slow.
Storm blew,
lake grew;
momently grows clearer.

Oaks root
yards out,
grope from silver mirror.

Odd. Traces of an older road
stitch an asphalt high-tide mark.
It wriggles round the reservoir,
bounding a strip of bare red shore.
Branching bleached debris makes clear
that high water often laps that far.

The oaks say flood. The stones say drought.
The car swans on, through the middle
of the riddle.

The lake is both low and abrim!
Fault-tilt proof. Pacific Rim.

An old man glides across the silver eye
on a silent surfboard.

No wave,
no sail,
no motorboat to pull.
He's just a man of skill--
rides slow
earth-shift
or is it his own sheer will?
Bare feet grip the board; he angles in, until
he slips above the rippleroad itself.

He trails us, bearded, mirrored, mute.
Shadows of his toes
flit across the drowning road--
our shifting, faulty world.

NOTES

LISTS AND LINKS: beaches - trust & fear - twins & doubles - dreams about dreaming - dream devices, sculpture & architecture - the art biz - dream-puns - money - watery - landscape - Zen - Taoism - the surfer speaks! in Razi & the Holy Wino of Shasta - the San Andreas Fault - dream poems - Dreamverses project - the next Dreamverse: Sleepers All!

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