Time with a Nighthead
Dreamed c.1960 by Barbara Gordon Paine
Once upon a middle of the night sort of day,
I heard a raking of the screen. Then the door opened, and a box not for, but against, slid in. One glance at the crafted carton and I knew this was sent an uncalled-for way. I tried to throw it out, but my skin seemed grafted to the cornered plot. Twisting, turning, I finally pulled free. So warned, I still hoped to assure myself that the box contained a trick thing. . . like the toy I received as a child: a jumping jack that I had learned to love for the momentary hate I could express in a yell. Wild I was, and secure . . . for I could break the gift any old time. What of this box? Adult me a childish trick, please! Suddenly the lid tripped up.
...The lid slammed sound.
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EDITOR'S NOTE
This is from Eidolon, 1961, by Barbara Gordon Paine. Paine knew, and was influenced by, such poets as Karl Shapiro and Kenneth Patchen (her shape-poem protesting the letter Q is comically Patchenesque). Many other Eidolon poems are dreamlike and powerful--like "The Devil and the Poet", "Going Back To" and As a Hillborough Child I Never Could Find, but this is the only explicit dream.
--Chris Wayan
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