This is sort of a dream.
I feel like I have all these hangovers from all
these conversations I've had with writers here this week,
I mean, sort of in classrooms.
And one of the things-- so anyway, something
that I think about a lot is that dreams
are like the perfect object for writing poems off
of because they're like they're fleeting.
So you can't-- it's incomplete.
So you're always doing this thing
of trying to kind of get it or trying
to articulate it or something.
And then it's impossible.
So the impossibility is this beautiful, poetic form.
So it's only-- a few times I've woken out of sleep
and instantly wrote a poem, and it really worked.
And then many times, it's not worked at all.
And I just have these things in my notebook.
But this one is called "Monday Shit."
And of course, the people at Grove were like,
are you sure about that title?
Yes, I'm sure.
But it's a dream.
"I don't know if I'm knowing something or falling apart.
I put my two feet together.
It's Monday.
I put the water on.
I was dropping a man off, a dark haired friend.
I was parked in the middle of the plaza.
I can't stay here.
I went inside a little.
I got to go.
And I went up there over the lumpy hills.
The store where the women worked,
my friends, an old guitar store, everything's
different now because of the pandemic.
I want to go to that, I think.
Can I put my bike behind the counter or up there?
No, because we're moving.
I see plenty of room.
Next, I'm all involved with them, the kids,
and they're playing outside.
I'm in the apartment somehow and everyone's gone, like I woke.
I could have put my bicycle anywhere.
It's morning.
I called the children like it's morning.
Where did this shit come from?
And I found the morning coffee.
And this is a miracle.
I just called them.
And they came in like dogs.
I dreamed this world.
That's it.
Does it work this way, working, dreaming, having a life,
making and dying?
Why did I die to dream this?
And everyone that knows me or something somewhere
or some while, I know you once in a while.
I truly forgot about him.
I didn't know he was going to do that.
Everybody's not in a dream, but me or we find each other here.
I didn't know their fucking names,
but I found their children.
I was first.
I'm waking here.
It's perfect, everything.
Because copy is like music, I thought
about quitting in the future for the better orgasm.
I read that.
I did it once in the '80s.
We were camping and shit, whoa, waking from that dream
into this.
But my cave, my hovel, afraid to put it in a suitcase,
while my dreaming come.
The feeling of flowing with you, but you have seven stories.
And I have three, possibly three.
One flooded with a baby.
Do I know?
All I know is this kid.
I'm just thinking about what you're getting
into as I'm making my day.
How did it end this time?
Feeding the yellow dog.
I was looking for a parking place.
And it was my dyke, my children.
And I didn't know anyone's names.
Is this the story that holds the future, or is this the day
so marvelous pouring some of it over and over there?
I think it's perfect in me, this prophecy right
here, now it holds."