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Volcanic Oath

Dreamed 1972/5/20 by Wayan, age 17

THAT DAY

Pumpkin, our red tabby cat, wandered more & more till he just ran off months ago... like my sister Althea did.

A few days ago he crawled home with a bloody, torn throat. Days of argument and tears. This morning our parents took him to a low-cost vet for surgery. Cheap because the guy's never done that operation before, wants to learn. The most we could argue our father into--it's that or euthanasia.

In the evening we learn it went fine. Pumpkin will live. Relief! But now I wonder just how much my dad'd be willing to spend if it was me.

THAT NIGHT

Picnicking, our new cat Persephone
chases a turkey up a tree. Bird becomes
a pert shawl-girl. She and a second wing-
shawl-scarf kid bike the buttressed roots.

Will the hunters shoot? No, just jog a lap
round the stadium. We join, abike, awing.
These birdbikefolk are elves. Far out
in space, on asteroid austere, is their

Elvish computer library. My poetry class
pass lets me in. Slip into the fiction
section. Find a bitter Zelazny tale, a Bible
fable: Christ says a broken oath dooms

Me. I am the tale. Feast in a vaulted hall,
the volcano's maw, red magma-lit.
Gums heatshimmer, spangled green
with jade teeth. I pull a fang, but I omit

The sorcerous oath to socket-seal; so
lava-blood moltens: wakes to flow.
Guests leap up from tables, go. Jeeps
roar. I leap to an elvish rear bumper, but

we all know the prophecy--if I zoom
away the Mountain blows. First quake;
lava-tongues lap slope. Elves escape
Earth, but I'm doomed, oath-doomed

For a molar's reckless pull,
for my jaded greed. Engulfed
in Gollum's hell-chasm. Sear.
Pain. Writhe spasm. And wake.

Bird-girls up a tree, over an erupting volcano-hall. Dream sketch by Wayan. Click to enlarge.
IN THE MORNING

What a family meltdown
over our wounded cat.
But how am I to blame for that?
What oath did I ever break? Don't take
on cheapskate father-sins! Don't buy
tales casting me as Frodo or Christ. I
ain't your designated martyr. Just a boy.

50 YEARS LATER

Half a century, and I still struggle with being a cheapskate. Thanks, dad! But then, he had learned the hard way to begrudge every dime--he was dirt-poor and hungry in the Great Depression. Born a hundred years ago, yet his famine echoes on... in me.



LISTS AND LINKS:
BEFORE: cats - rescue! - surgery - my dad - family values - money & social class - runaway kids? or throw-aways?
DREAM: cats - hunts - birds - trees - transform! - kids - bikes - elves - libraries - dream books - Christianity - volcanoes - oaths - treasure - heat - pain & dying in dreams
AFTER: nightmares - family values - guilt? - financial advice - dream-poems & digital art - juvenilia - Tolkien dreams - a Zelazny-inspired epic dream: Misfits on Mars

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