Late Night Thoughts and Dreams

I am struck by the words of Stephen Dunn, “Can we imagine a world without hypocrisy? Would we want to live in it? All that brutality trying to pass as honesty.” This Republic would have us paint the world black and white. It imagines a world that is beyond impossibility  - and they call us dreamers – and think it a reality. But, no matter how they try to reason it, the world is not black and white. The world is a hypocrite. It says it can not snow in Southern California, and then it does. It says man can not fly, and then he does. It says the entire world cannot war, and then it does. Twice. Man, loving and graceful, levels two cities in Japan. Man, understanding, noblest of God’s creations, destroys two buildings in New York. With power and reason on his side, he enslaves, he murders, he conquers. He dethrones God while he claims to worship at his feet. The world is a hypocritical place, and how can you hope to explain that without poetry? How can make sense of all of this without poetry? How can man survive himself without poetry? 

They say we live in a dream world? 

I say they live in a dream world and we live in a world of dreams.

Poetry fills in a very important part of our life. It isn’t escapism, although we certainly have used it to escape our fears, our doubts, the mundane nature of daily life, the socially constructed norm, the oppressive religious culture. It is ownership, these words, these stories, these sorrows, these triumphs, these highs, these lows. They are ours. Until we found our voice - our poems - our world was the world of our fathers, of the Republic. They controlled everything. We listened to what they listened to. We watched what they watched. Poetry is our rebellion. It is our punk rock, our Beatles, our put-it-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it. It is everything they can not understand.