Dreams...and New Poems

Do you ever wake up with a thread of a thought on your mind, and then lose it as soon as you get out of bed? Or do you have dreams that stick with you throughout the day, even though they seem so removed from your everyday life? These 'first thoughts', or dream thoughts, can prove very fruitful in the creative process.

The theme of my Mothers' Writing Group homework from last week, was 'Following the Golden String'. I got the idea from Jacaranda Press, and basically it involves writing down your first thought(s) on waking, then later in the day sitting down and doing some free writing, stream of consciousness style, emerging out of that word or phrase.

Frequently my first thought on waking is merely an incoherent 'Aargh', as I wonder how I can possibly get some more sleep, and my toddler, J, is climbing all over me. So after a few days of being unable to recall a first thought, I decided to write about a strange dream I had instead. Often I remember my dreams quite vividly, and in the past have kept dream journals.

So here is my dream poem, followed by another poem I write quite 'on the spot', while sitting in the beautiful Woodvale Cemetery, where I often do my writing.

America: A Dream

When I got off the plane,

I didn’t recognise the place.

But I knew, somehow, it was

America. Land of vast plains

I could travel with an eye,

Of motels & striplights & cowboy rodeo –

Things I don’t know, but could imagine,

Mainly from books.

They say America’s the land of the greedy

But I’m thinking about Ralph Waldo Emerson

And Walt Whitman and TS Eliot’s

‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’

And I think what they all had in common

Was emptiness,

The emptiness and openness of the land.

I walk, and my steps are as big as this place,

As big as the moon,

And it’s limitless what I can do.

©Morgan Nichols, July 2009.

Crow

Crow struts,

Sleek-winged

Like a chief inspector

Eyes appraise me

White butterfly darts across

- he’s gone

©Morgan Nichols, July 2009.