13 November 2011

A Dream in Which I Run Over Two Toddlers

This is offered in response to dVerse- Poets Pub prompt to use idioms and spread the poetry love
and Magpie Tales haunting visual prompt as seen here.



Last night in the graveyard shift of my dreams
I stood looking at a high hill that I needed to climb.
My niece ran over to show me a train track to take up
and a flat, open tram to sit on for the trek to the top. No directions
were given me for how to work this tram but
I was drawn up as if by an invisible cable.

I climbed slowly and then plateaued for a bit,
climbed again and again plateaued. On the third plateau
a young boy appeared beside the track in front of me. He held a rope
attached to a smaller, open trolley on which sat two toddlers.
The boy laughed as he pulled them along in the same direction I was headed
then turned and raced the toddlers' trolley toward my tram until I ran over them.
Traces of blood tipped the front of the tram.

My tram continued to the top as waves
of disbelief, horror, guilt, hope that no one saw, fear
about leaving the scene of the accident and determination to make a police report on the accident
washed over me. Through it all careened the question
of how seriously the toddlers were hurt. I saw my daughter at the hilltop,
told her of the accident. She had heard it on the news,
but never said if the two little ones lived or died.

I wandered and worried since it was longer and longer
from the time of the accident, stymied
by how to find the police and consumed
by concern over the toddlers' condition.
I felt like a woman in a foggy field surrounded by chairs
whose arrangement makes no sense as I looked around for what to do next,
as if a dream is our sixth sense but defies discernment.

26 comments:

  1. oo some nice word play in this...an visuals as well...i think there is something to certain dreams...i rather like the nice ones that come true...smiles....

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  2. what a disturbing dream...and have just seen the magpie pic over at willow's - good play on it as well..

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  3. You do an excellent job of conveying the sense of dread/fear/anxiety. Excellent phrasing and selection of words from the very first line! Very well done!

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  4. Brian, Some dreams I don't even remember but this one stuck with me and seemed important to understand.

    Claudia, It was disturbing, so vivid, and when I saw that photo I knew it helped explain the feeling.

    Zum, Thanks, there was a lot to this dream and I wanted to understand it better.

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  5. I hear you. Some dreams just won't leave me until I give them a voice. That is what you have done here, and I think it will speak to others, just like it did to me. I don't know what it means either.

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  6. vivid dreams were meant to turn into art. (why isn't that an idiom?)

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  7. Unsettling dream. Well captured.

    =)

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  8. A terrifying dream but so creative!

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  9. funny where our dreams take us - even the ones that are disturbing can bring something

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  10. I thought this was well put together, it followed the theme through to the confusion of the young girlin her field of chairs. Dreams are but a form of thought.

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  11. Beautifully rendered from your dream. When I dream of little ones, they are usually not literal, but represent something new ready to be born from me, something creative.

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  12. Wow....a nightmare woven into questions of redemption, perhaps?? This was disturbing, but also thought provoking.

    Rick

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  13. DJan, I think Ruth is on to something as to meaning.

    Zongrik, It should be an idiom. Let us make it one.

    Sue, Thanks, it was a good process for me to gain more understanding.

    Laurie. Isn't it amazing what our minds come up with when we think they're asleep?

    Jo, True, this one did.

    Christine, I appreciate your feedback. Dreams are a most creative form of thought.

    Sunny, Thank you.

    Ruth, I think you're right about this. I talked it out with my Honey and realized a couple (literally!) of creative impulses I've run over and not nurtured. I'm in awe of the power of our subconscious. And the role of dreams. Sound like you're experiencing this too.

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  14. I find dreams are hooks to all the hidden fears and unresolved issues in our lives. They tend to give us hints and openings, in creative thinking, unusual perceptions, in ways to part the ocean and get our lives in order.

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  15. Rosaria, They do shake things up don't they?

    Mama Zen, Thanks.

    James, It was but it has lead to insight I didn't have before it.

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  16. Disturbing dream. Strange how some dreams hang with one for ages. Nice piece!

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  17. You need the biblical Joseph. (The Coat of Many Colors one, not Mary's husband or any other.)

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  18. Haunting and horrifying imagery in this. A dream Ike this both begs and shuns interpretation. The result could be even more horrifying.

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  19. Tumblewords, I've had a few in my lifetime that have stayed with me permanently.

    Brandee, His wisdom in interpreting dreams would be helpful!

    Patti, I hope not. I'm working with it as a message from my subconscious.

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  20. That was some dream. This is some poem. Thank you.

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  21. ds, writing it and the feedback I received helped me understand it more. Glad you stopped in.

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