This is what I dreamed.
I was on a journey with my sisters Sylvia, and Kim. The girls were children again. About 12, and eight. I was a young man perhaps 20. We were in a fine horse carriage. A lovely affair of the sort that the gentry of the Federalist era used.
We were riding through Brooklyn, our Borough of Churches. However this was a city not built by blind capital, but one wrought by idealists from the Sun King's realm.
So beautiful. A thoughtful, practical lovely city.
I remember leaning slightly from the carriage to see as much of this dream Brooklyn as I could. Everything I saw combined function, and art.
My sisters did as I always remembered them doing on long trips.
They giggled, and played mysterious hand games. Given what grandma was teaching them I assumed they were casting spells.
We were off to see a play. A fevered collage of the "Red Shoes", "A Mid-Summer Nights Dream", and something I can't identify. I could make something up, but it wouldn't be true to the dream.
The Tickets.
A whole anxious subplot to this mayhem was my trying to find the tickets. As my sisters sat in their white with hints of silver Jane Austin gowns I quietly poked about my pockets for the damned tickets.
Btw, I'm not a dress designer. So how did I come up with such gorgeous gowns for my sisters. Also, no architect I, so how did I cook up the Sun Kings Brooklyn?
Where does all this come from, and don't start with that collective unconscious stuff. I think something grander than even that may be involved.
Anyway the footman, yeah that guy was there too. The footman opened the door, and my beautiful little sisters climbed down. So off we went ticketless to the dream theatre.
'But what a theatre!
It was as wonderful as the Pentagon is grim. Imagine a palace for the arts as designed by Turner, and Walt Whitman. Yeah I could live with that.
We passed under a free floating rotunda whose ceiling was spangled with stars, and misty nebulae,...Turner.
Wait gets better.
My Brother John. My deceased big brother John. John the war hero. John the politician. John the husband, father, and brother. My brother Johnny was standing the entrance of this dream pavilion.
He said nothing.
The dead never do in my dreams. But he handed me an envelope. It was my "lost" tickets.
I'll end it here.
The play, my sisters the strange sky. More'n more dream stuff.
Better to end it here.
Love the spectacular imagery - it reminds me of Little Nemo in Slumberland. Except his relatives, when they turn up, are all living. There's an episode where Nemo asks his uncle, who is doing some very odd exercises, why he never married. Answer: "Don't ask foolish questions!"
ReplyDeleteMaybe your dream showed an ideal Platonic Brooklyn, as it should have been. It would be interesting to do a dream tour of the world this way.
P.S. - Once a departed uncle spoke to me in a dream. I didn't see him, but I heard his voice. He said, "Kevin - get a fax machine!"
ReplyDeleteI never did get a fax machine. Probably I should have.
I like your idea of expanding my dream.
ReplyDeleteA walk through in a beautiful Paris-like in the 1920's Le Jazz Hot mixed with a gentle Platonic Dionysian vibe kinda town.
Yup Turner Whitman, and Langston Hughes would we be at home in such a place.