Strümpell Argues about Dreams

Whereas the psyche thinks and imagines in verbal images and language when awake,

in dreams it imagines and thinks in real sensory images (The Interpretation of Dreams,

p. 35)

And I must ask

Is every poet always

Sleeping?

Every lover in a

Hypnagogic hallucination?

Is every kiss a

Sensory impression which comes from within?

One long look and I am afloat on slumber

Your cheek on mine and everything is

Chartreuse

Especially my pants which you are wearing but

I understand them as my own

Maybe this is all a dream so that I can hold all of it in my head

The grape popsicle the piano music the palms of hands resting in the heavy air

Maybe this is all a ploy to touch you

So privately that not even I can piece together our movements in the morning

Maybe we are monstrous and bizarre ideas who chase each other

On the basis of a coincidental connection or a distant symbological relation

A whisper of a thread of a tie that might bind

And the only place we can find each other is a dream

But how can we be figments of the afflicted imagination?

Born to help some heretic self soothe?

How? When I can bring your face to the frame of my mind

Without any missing patches or distortions

If I can pinch myself and stay in your arms?

If I can hold your body in my sleep

Warm and intact and pressed against mine

And find it again in the light?

Kavya Krishnamurthy