Waking
Waking
We lay as if dead.
I’d pled with you
best I could hardly moving
to keep your head
back of my legs,
but could not
raise my own
to track yours.
They’d be back
any second–after the shots
and shouts,
some side stairs seemed
to have beckoned–
an echoing clamber up
that set us wondering
if we could run, but
we lay close, only hearts
darting.
I kept thinking
that only one was bad, the other one
on the chase,
but I realize now
I had no basis for that.
Still, when the bad guy flowed by,
I felt relieved briefly,
even as the other turned
into our niche,
bending his knees to the same pitch
as his weapon, whispering,
“I’m sorry, ladies.”
I thought at first–almost–
that it was an apology–as if
for the inconvenience–until
we were rinsed by blur–shards
of stopped-time–maybe pocked
concrete,
and whether we too were hit, I wasn’t sure, only
that we were lying now
harder than ever.
********************
A sort of a poem that was prompted by a dream (rather than another site’s post!) The drawing is also one of mine. (All rights reserved.)
I’m sorry to have been slow returning comments–a lot going on, but I will visit! In the meantime, if you have any free time, please do check out my new book, Nice, available on Amazon and on Kindle (99 cents!) Or check out any of my old books! Thanks much.
Explore posts in the same categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: "Waking" poem, dream poem, gun control already please, manicddaily, what we dream of when we live in the US of A
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ManicDDaily 
October 4, 2014 at 7:48 am
Well done, Karen, and congrats on the new book. Will check it out.
Small wonder that in our world you have such a dream and that it makes its way into poem. Yesterday fournd me researching the shooting of the little Amish girls Pennsylvannia in 2006 and they’re very untypical reaction, including going to the funeral of the shooter. Elements of both profound pain and profound beauty there.
“rinsed by blur-shards of stopped time” I can feel them holding their breath.
October 4, 2014 at 9:19 am
I’m always fascinating by the voices that speak to us in dreams and what they show us, and even more by what they conceal. This has a tautness and anxiety to it that gradually become a sort of numb acceptance of the out-of-control–very dreamlike–and also, the more conscious voice of the narrator makes for a recitation that seems almost formal in its neutral, reporter’s sort of tone. All of this just gives a more surreal edge to the context. Whoever the enemy is here, whatever the assault, it is purely terrifying.
October 4, 2014 at 11:30 am
Thanks–there was this bad cop/good cop thing going on that I probably should have tried to take further, or should, but I didn’t want to be longer-winded–preachy! k.
On Sat, Oct 4, 2014 at 10:19 AM, ManicDDaily wrote:
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October 4, 2014 at 12:48 pm
A chilling dream,and yet all too real. A bad guy flowing by and “blur-shards of stopped time” images of stealth and shooting that as hedgewitch says makes this a bit surreal (as it must be in life) and also beyond frightening, the narrator suspended somewhere above herself, looking down. It is a wonderful poem.
October 4, 2014 at 1:02 pm
Thanks. k.
October 6, 2014 at 9:16 am
yikes…just a bit scary to be looking down the barrel of the gun…thinking maybe you had made it…the false apology…sorry, but….bang….
October 6, 2014 at 9:31 am
Ha. Yes. Really scary! k.
October 10, 2014 at 9:21 pm
well, you could have dreamed about politicians in DC, so I guess pick your scary… ~