History of Solitude by Doug Ramspeck

If a field is a tree is a crow is a moon is a shadow,

the hours hang low-slung, thin as a rib.

We are given over to the skeletal: grackles darting,

burned barns, traceries of inconsolable smoke.

And when the dogwoods tremble in elemental

wind, when the lexicon of night is loam is grass

is moonless lake, we accept the origins

of far away. Like a hammer like a bone like ash.

We dream of a mother rocking her stillborn

child until the child cries back into the world, dream

that the messenger is fragment is cold kiln is snow

shape covering whatever we recognize.

What was present once in a great fire is smoke

drifting across septic gray morning where we are

openmouthed with waiting, where a shadow

is a  moon is a crow is a tree is a field.

The Deepest Dream by Mark van Doren

The deepest dream is of mad governors,
Down, down we feel it, till the very crust
Of the world cracks, and where there was no dust,
Atoms of ruin rise. Confusion stirs,
And fear; and all our thoughts–dark scavengers–
Feed on the center’s refuse. Hope is thrust
Like wind away, and love sinks into lust
For merest safety, meanest of levelers.

And then we wake. Or do we? Sleep endures
More than the morning can, when shadows lie
Sharper than mountains, and the cleft is real
Between us and our kings. What sun assures
Our courage, and what evening by and by
Descends to rest us, and perhaps to heal?

Distance by Madison Cawein

I

I dreamed last night once more I stood
Knee-deep on purple clover leas;
Her old home glimmered through its wood
Of dark and melancholy trees:
And on my brow I felt the breeze
That blew from out the solitude,
With sounds of waters that pursued,
And sleepy hummings of the bees.

II

And ankle-deep in violet blooms
Methought I saw her standing there,
A lawny light among the glooms,
A crown of sunlight on her hair;
The wood-birds, warbling everywhere,
Above her head flashed happy plumes;
About her clung the wild perfumes,
And woodland gleams of shimmering air.

III

And then she called me: in my ears
Her voice was music; and it led
My sad soul back with all its fears;
Recalled my spirit that had fled.—
And in my dream it seemed she said,
“Our hearts keep true through all the years;”
And on my face I felt the tears,
The blinding tears of her long dead.

Dreams by Thomas Traherne

‘Tis strange! I saw the Skies;
I saw the Hills before mine Eys;
The Sparrow fly;
The Lands that did about me ly;
The reall Sun, that hev’nly Ey!
Can closed Eys ev’n in the darkest Night
See throu their Lids, and be inform’d with Sight?

The Peeple were to me
As tru as those by day I see;
As tru the Air,
The Earth as sweet, as fresh, as fair
As that which did by day repair
Unto my waking Sense! Can all the Sky,
Can all the World, within my brain-pan ly?

What sacred Secret’s this,
Which seems to intimat my Bliss?
What is there in
The narrow Confines in my Skin,
That is alive and feels within
When am I dead? Can Magnitude possess
An activ Memory, yet not be less?

May all that I can see
Awake, by Night within me be?
My Childhood knew
No Differences, but all was Tru,
As Reall all as what I view;
The World its Self was there. ‘Twas wondrous strange,
That Hev’n and Earth should so their place exchange.

Till that which vulgar Sense
Doth falsly call Experience,
Distinguisht things:
The Ribbans, and the gaudy Wings
Of Birds, the Virtues, and the Sins
That represented were in Dreams by night
As really my Senses did delight,

Or griev, as those I saw
By Day: Things terrible did aw
My soul with Fear;
The Apparitions seem’d as near
As Things could be, and Things they were:
Yet were they all by Fancy in me wrought,
An all their Being founded in a Thought.

O what a Thing is Thought!
Which seems a Dream; yea, seemeth Nought,
Yet doth the Mind

Affect as much what we find
Most near and tru! Sure Men are blind,
And can’t the forcible Reality
Of things that Secret are within them see.

Thought! Surely Thoughts are tru;
They pleas as much as Things can do:
Nay things are dead,
And in themselves are severed
From Souls; nor can they fill the Head
Without our Thoughts. Thoughts are the Reall things
From whence all Joy, from whence all Sorrow springs.

From I See Expenditure by Amy Stewart

There’s something extremely strange about us, not so far for external, but in our minds, our minds hold keys. Memories.
But for ourselves, we have our purpose; even failures.
But our future, is that what we are made for?
We are no longer in the past,
We are neither in the future,
We are in the now.

There are times we create worlds in our minds, to make ourselves feel more alien to this life.
For Inside our minds can be worlds so ungodly beautiful, we forget this fact, create and make many thoughts, sheltered in us is a dream, a dream so amazing. We keep it hidden.

Why do we do this?
Us humans are extrodianry, we have thoughts, feelings, dreams, emotions and what do we do?
Make realities in our minds, so powerful that we prefer that inner world to this one.

When you have no light in the darkness, you may walk alone.
Maybe choosing to walk alone or trying to find someone else to walk with you, But know i can see through into your darkness too, beside you now i still question these thoughts.

I lay here now, accomplished nothing but feeling scarce. feelings of overselling anxiety, or maybe deep intertwined sadness of who i want to be, but unable to be there. Im stuck. Im always stuck, caught between a barrier of unspent sorrows.

Seeking refuge, i want to bid a final farewell to this war.
Am i safe here? Are we safe?.
For now im capable of intending to find myself hidden, but till then,

The darkness will find me again

 

sculpture: https://lithicworks.com/2016/06/24/form16ballymaloe-sculpture-exhibition/

Dream by Susan Wicks

dream
You only had to leave and your bedroom
has rolled out into space
in a swirl of branches where the full moon
presses its pale face to the glass.
There’s a pool of milk under the sill.
I’m paddling in white blood
that dries without a trace. A trail
leads from the curtain to the made bed
where something of you still lies
looking up at these posters – a man on his knees
slick as a seal in his blue latex sheath;
a ripple of ochre desert; a gold-silk-trousered Puck
pinned in mid-leap with a message: Back
in forty minutes; the spinning earth.

The Dream by John Donne

Dear love, for nothing less than thee

Would I have broke this happy dream;

            It was a theme

For reason, much too strong for fantasy,

Therefore thou wak’d’st me wisely; yet

My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it.

Thou art so true that thoughts of thee suffice

To make dreams truths, and fables histories;

Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best,

Not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest.

 

   As lightning, or a taper’s light,

Thine eyes, and not thy noise wak’d me;

            Yet I thought thee

(For thou lovest truth) an angel, at first sight;

But when I saw thou sawest my heart,

And knew’st my thoughts, beyond an angel’s art,

When thou knew’st what I dreamt, when thou knew’st when

Excess of joy would wake me, and cam’st then,

I must confess, it could not choose but be

Profane, to think thee any thing but thee.

 

   Coming and staying show’d thee, thee,

But rising makes me doubt, that now

            Thou art not thou.

That love is weak where fear’s as strong as he;

‘Tis not all spirit, pure and brave,

If mixture it of fear, shame, honour have;

Perchance as torches, which must ready be,

Men light and put out, so thou deal’st with me;

Thou cam’st to kindle, goest to come; then I

Will dream that hope again, but else would die.