I had a dream last night that involved taste and smell (and ghosts). That seemed odd since one's sense of smell is turned off while you sleep. I guess this is as good a time as any for this poem about dreaming of food while you succumb to the smoke of a house fire. Macabre? Indeed, but I really like it. It has a disturbing beauty.
fire!
sleep slow smoking
mountain trout tender
languored fumes snake slakey
whispers over the transom
we dream-collaborate
in rapt synchronicity
lungs smoke us inside out
as skin mediates wicking
egg shell white bubble & blister
we slowly slow turn jerky
as toes curl, fingers gnurl
to an old man’s clawfist
the closer the flame the farther we are
strnuggling tender loins in sizzle
dreaming hollandaise and horseradish
singe-mingling in burnt communion
the dream we dream
contains us
cradles us
2002
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2 comments:
Owl Meat Gitanes,
Again with the flames and incineration! You do have a theme here. Of course it is all about cooking isn't it.
This is a grotesque, exquisite poem.
I'd have to do more (some) research to know for sure but I think investigators have demonstrated a human ability to sense smell while asleep. Raphael Alvarez refers to this phenomenon in his story "Aunt Lola" about the aroma of pizzelles.
House fires always seem to happen at this time of year (holidays).
Until the fire next time...
Owl,
Good poem. Sounds like something Stephen King would put in the foreward of one of his books.
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