Red, white and blue

When the sky is so blue and the clouds so white, you might be near San Francisco Bay in April. At least I probably won't be able to help using a few more of the pictures I took at San Francisco's Fort Mason yesterday. This one reminds me a little of a steam locomotive. At the far left, in the far faint distance, one of the towers of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge can just be seen.

The Dream 

The dream of Narcissus,

that there would be a silence loud as time

The dream of the writer,

that there could be a silence loud as time

The dream of time,

that rest might come

The dream of rest,

that unrest might arise

The dream of the palm,

that pilgrims would enter the village

The dream of the village,

that they depart with their fronds

And the house dreaming of its leveling

and the exile of his well

The dream of night,

that the day would be purified

The dream of day,

that the dark would be lifted

And the dream of the dream,

but who's to speak of this

Michael Palmer, 

from Company of Moths, New Directions, 2005, page 42.

I talk a little about Michael Palmer here, and there is another poem from this book.

Take a look at the structure of this poem. Two-line stanzas, each with a separate dream. And each beginning with a capital letter. The second line in each stanza begins with the word "that" except in two cases. Lots of commas are used, which probably could be left off, relying on the linebreaks; what do you think? Each stanza takes off from the noun in the second line of the previous stanza. This creates a path throughout the poem. Dream is an evoccative word; I wonder if we could try to write a poem in this structure using some other potent concept?? Good night.