From whiskey river:
A Remedy for Insomnia
Not sheep coming down the hills,
not cracks on the ceiling —
count the ones you loved,
the former tenants of dreams
who would keep you awake,
once meant the world to you,
rocked you in their arms,
those who loved you…
You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears.
(Vera Pavlova, If There Is Something To Desire [source])
From that site’s archive (whiskey river’s commonplace book):
Too Easy: to Write of Miracles
Too easy: to write of miracles, dreams where the famous give
mysterious utterance to silent truth;
to confuse snow with the stars,
simulate a star’s fantastic wisdom.Easy like the willow to lament,
rant in trampled roads where pools
are red with sorrowful fires, and sullen rain
drips from the willows’ ornamental leaves;
or die in words and angrily turn
to pace like ghosts about the walls of war.But difficult when, innocent and cold,
day, a bird over a hill, flies in
— resolving anguish to a strange perspective,
a scene within a marble; returning
the brilliant shower of coloured dreams to dust,
a smell of fireworks lingering by canals
on autumn evenings — difficult to write
of the real image, real hand, the heartDream a Little Dream of Me
of day or autumn beating steadily:
to speak of human gestures, clarify
all the context of a simple phrase
— the hour, the shadow, the fire,
the loaf on a bare table.Dream a Little Dream of MeHard, under the honest sun, to weigh
a word until it balances with love —
burden of happiness on fearful shoulders;
in the ease of daylight to discover
what measure has its music, and achieve
the unhaunted country of the final poem.
(Denise Levertov, Sicily, 1948 [source])
Not from whiskey river:
Basked in the sun,
listened to birds,
licked off raindrops,
and only in flight
the leaf saw the tree
and grasped
what it had been.
(Vera Pavlova, ibid. [source])
…and:
The writer doesn’t trust his enemies, of course, who are wrong about his writing, but he doesn’t trust his friends, either, who he hopes are right. The writer trusts nothing he writes — it should be too reckless and alive for that, it should be beautiful and menacing and slightly out of his control. It should want to live itself somehow. The writer dies — he can die before he dies, it happens all the time, he dies as a writer — but the work wants to live.
Language accepts the writer as its host, it feeds off the writer, it makes him a husk. There is something uncanny about good writing — uncanny the singing that comes from certain husks. The writer is never nourished by his own work, it is never satisfying to him. The work is a stranger, it shuns him a little, for the writer is really something of a fool, so engaged in his disengagement, so self-conscious, so eager to serve something greater, which is the writing. Or which could be the writing if only the writer is good enough. The work stands a little apart from the writer, it doesn’t want to go down with him when he stumbles or fails or retreats. The writer must do all this alone, in secret, in drudgery, in confusion, awkwardly, one word at a time.
(Joy Williams [source])
Finally: I’d hoped to find that the late Lena Horne had recorded “Dream a Little Dream,” the lilting popular song from 1931. No such luck, although apparently everyone else to have recorded anything from that era has tackled it. (Hmm… A “What’s in a Song” candidate, maybe?) This scat-entwined version is by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong (not, cough, “Armstrom”):
Lyrics:
Dream a Little Dream of Me
(music by Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt; lyrics by Gus Kahn; performance by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong)Stars shining bright above you.
Night breezes seem to whisper, “I love you,”
Birds singing in the sycamore tree.
Dream a little dream of me.Say nighty-night and kiss me.
Just hold me tight and tell me you’ll miss me.
While I’m alone and blue as can be,
Dream a little dream of me.Stars fading, but I linger on, dear,
Still craving your kiss.
I’m longing to linger ’till dawn, dear,
Just saying this:Sweet dreams ’til sunbeams find you,
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you.
But in your dreams, whatever they be.
Dream a little dream of me.
______________________
Notes:
- About this post’s title, per Wikipedia:
A lucid dream is a dream in which the sleeper is aware that he or she is dreaming. When the dreamer is lucid, he or she can actively participate in and often manipulate the imaginary experiences in the dream environment. Lucid dreams can seem extremely real and vivid depending on a person’s level of self-awareness during the lucid dream…
A lucid dream can begin in one of two ways. A dream-initiated lucid dream (DILD) starts as a normal dream, and the dreamer eventually concludes that he or she is dreaming, while a wake-initiated lucid dream (WILD) occurs when the dreamer goes from a normal waking state directly into a dream state with no apparent lapse in consciousness.
Lucid dreaming has been researched scientifically, and its existence is well established.
- The image at the top of this post is from a Flickr photostream called “Lucid Dream Sequence.” (Click on it to see the complete set.) The photographer, liliophelia, says:
This is a series based on how the lucid dream works. The dreamer (in red) gains lucidity when an element in her dream doesn’t make sense, and she realizes it (symbolized by the popping of her balloon). Once she realizes she’s dreaming, she takes advantage of it and flies away.
moonrat says
this is a good morning song!!
word ver: Government confirms
John says
Moonie: By nearly universal agreement (I wouldn’t be surprised if the government confirmed it, too), I can’t whistle very well. In fact, I know only one person who thinks otherwise (alas, I guess my own vote doesn’t count). But this is a fun song to whistle in an empty restroom. (Not that I have actually done so *cough*.)
I had so many versions to choose from for this post. It’s been covered by so many artists! But it does lend itself to being sung a little coquettishly; one of my favorite versions of this sort is by a young Polish… well, I guess you could call her a chanteuse: Karolina Pasierbska. Here’s the YouTube version — love what she does with her voice:
Jules says
I’m having trouble getting past the first Vera Pavlova. I keep re-reading. Beautiful.
John says
Jules: Was that not lovely? I don’t know that I’d ever read Pavlova before — this is not unembarrassing to admit, since she is widely and very respectably published. Here’s another poem from the same collection:
Froog says
Wow. I think I’m in love – again.
Too many goodies in this post already, with Pavlova and Ella and Louis, but…. then you throw Karolina into the comment thread as an oh-so-casual afterthought, you wicked taunting man.
Nance says
I copied two of the poems to the Poetry page on my blog; then, copied the wiki info and sent it along to a blog friend who’d just posted on two very disturbing lucid dreams that fall into the DILD category; then, came back to comment and ran into some more stuff I needed to squirrel away somewhere. Now, what was it I was supposed to be doing before I got to this post today?
Jill says
JES (so used to calling you that from Jules’ blog that it has become a habit),
I lurk here all the time, but wanted to come out of hiding to say bravo! to your choice of poetry today. I hadn’t heard of Pavlova before today either, but her poem about insomnia is particularly gorgeous and especially timely for me — been tossing and turning all week. I am going to find a book of her work. Thank you!
John says
Froog: Big grin here. In all honesty, I didn’t know that that afterthought would succeed with you. But I remembered your surprising… affinity for the sand artist, and suspected you might find Ms. Pasierbska appealing as well.
That description of her as a “chanteuse” really didn’t paint a fair and complete picture. I assume you’ve been off reading about her, so you probably know by now that she’s a soprano — with professional experience in opera as well as popular music.
John says
Nance: Ye gods, woman. I think you might have spent more time on this post than I myself did!
And you know, it’s funny… Most of the blogs I visit regularly (including yours) are written by very thoughtful, literate, complex people; their posts linger with me for days after I first read them. So I end up sometimes returning to them to comment probably long after the author stopped paying attention… or, out of embarrassment that it’s taken me so long, I end up not returning to that post at all (at least, to comment). But I do the same squirreling-away thing!
John says
Jill!
If you follow the “[source]” link at the foot of either of those Pavlova poems, you’ll find that the Google Books version of her book, If There Is Something to Desire, is quite complete.
She has a nice Web site, too!
Jill says
JES,
Thank you — I clicked on the source link, and the complete title of her book, which is also a poem (as I’m sure you know), just blew me away! I want to hold that book in my hands and read it, so I’m on the hunt for a hard copy.
John says
As you probably know from Sundays at 7-Imp, Jill, I’m always ready to distract a reader with links to someplace elsewhere. :) So glad to see that Pavlova’s been a hit for you!
fg says
Thank you. I’m charmed to wake up to this post.
I’m with Jules, I want to but somehow can’t juice every drop out of that first Vera Pavlova poem. Gently but greedily re reading.
marta says
I’ve just finished story 14. My brain is tired. I’m tired. The song is lovely. The fallen leaf is lovely and tragic.
I had a lucid dream once. A few days after September 11th. I was at the World Trade Center lifting walls of metal in the dark.
John says
fg: “Gently but greedily re-reading” — I’d think just about any writer, poet or otherwise, would be thrilled to hear that from a reader. Glad you liked the song and poem!
(Although now that a few people have mentioned starting their mornings with this post, I rather wish I’d bumped the song video to the top.)
marta: That leaf you mention, in the untitled Pavlova poem, is the single image I definitely believe I’ll carry away from this post’s words… Strangely haunting, the idea of not really getting it until it’s all behind you.
Bet a lot of people had lucid dreams around that time. One reliable symptom of such a dream, for me, is that if it’s a good (i.e. pleasant) one, I think almost consciously to myself: Oh my gosh, I do like this dream. Please don’t let me wake up from it too soon…! For nightmares, it’s the reverse: This is just a dream just a dream just a dream but PLEASE nothing good can possibly come of it so PLEASE let it be over soon…
(Which, now that I think about it, makes them NOT, strictly speaking, lucid dreams: I’m not consciously manipulating the action; I’m simply conscious of the action, and hoping something will happen to sustain or end it.)
Anyway, the point of all that was that I too remember having been aware of my dreaming at the time of dreaming back then — mostly taking off from the horror of the on-screen images.
cynth says
One of my favorite versions of the song is Mama Cass Elliot sing it, sort of honky-tonk. The problem with that is I can’t get it out of my head once it starts, thereby creating a lucid dream?? Nah, nice post John.
ReCapcha: frippery comment?
The Querulous Squirrel says
Loved the two poems by Pavlova, the yearning and loss, and the Joy Williams quote, though I don’t totally believe it, and the Fitzgerald/Armstrong video.
John says
cynth: I know the Mama Cass version but actually thought I know it a little too well (maybe it’s the stuck-in-my-head effect for me, too).
When reading up about it a little, I learned that “Dream a Little Dream of Me” was written for Ozzy Nelson’s big band. And that Doris Day’s original recording of it, sometime in the early 1950s?, was the first recording at the slow tempo in which it was actually composed.
All these little bits of a song’s life…
Squirrel: Which part of the Williams quote do you have a hard time buying? It’s a little, uh… floridly indirect, maybe. But I actually thought of a good number of writers (or writers in the making, some of whom visit here often) when I first read it.