I'm in a sprawling old house in the country somewhere, trying to amuse or impress some young children; I don't know them very well. I look out the window at a fenced-in yard and happen to see a tiny spotted fawn dart out from behind a tree. Snow everywhere. I'm surprised that a deer would have given birth in this season. I rush out the back door to look for the fawn, encouraging the children to follow, and notice it ducking behind a tiny perfect pine tree. When I approach, two tiny fawns bolt, exquisite, incredibly delicate. I know that I should leave them alone, but justify my desire to catch one by rationalizing that their mother wouldn't have left them so near an inhabited house if she was really bothered by humans. The children egg me on as I quietly make my way to the miniscule pine. I see the hind flanks of one little deer and just grab hold of it when I am slammed from behind. I stand and turn and the mother deer, also quite small and delicate, rears up and grabs me with her front legs. She is nearly weightless but very strong, and we are grappling and flinging each other around. It's more like a ritualized dance than a real struggle, our eyes locked. Then she leans forward and bites me on the forehead and I let go and she and the fawns zip away. Adults from the house gather around me, very concerned, and somehow, through their eyes, I can "see" the deer's bite on my forehead, widely spaced blunt teeth marks, very red but she didn't break the skin. I accept everyone's help, and the thought crosses my mind that I should check myself for deer ticks. But secretly I'm delighted with the encounter.

In my dream, the violinist Julia Fischer paused before the cadenza and explained to the audience how the new cadenza she was about to have the honor of playing had been composed by young Mr Paul [ ], present in the audience, who had in fact written it not for her, Julia, but for [ ], the distinguished concertmaster of this orchestra -- who also seemed to be present. The explanation went on and on; at first I too was present as she explained, then absent, reading the transcript of her remarks (but the concert hall sounds and feelings were still all around me), which at first were in German (we are after all in Kiel, in the Kieler Schloss), then in English. At first it seems that the concertmaster was alive and well, and had graciously yielded to the young Julia the right of first performance. But then it seemed she actually was dead, and Julia was about to play this new cadenza in her memory. The dream ended before the cadenza began.

i
’m no
t so s
ure t
hat R
on thinks
I re
spect him bu
t i d
o re
all
y re
spect hi
m

I ha
d a ni
ght
ma
re tho
ugh w
here
i t
old hi
m of
f: Hey Mr Grap
ho
man
ia, Mr Or
der
ly organ
i
zer, i sd, How’s
Your Po
etry K
ill
ing
Death b
log?, I say I
say
to him i
n my dream a
nd he s
ays sh
ut the
fuck up g
a
be!

Hey Mr “Im
prima
tur,” Mr “Pun
dit”
i say i
say He
y Mr “Im
pre
sario o
f a
ll po
etry,” r
ega
rd
ing y
our blog: w
hen w
ill u
fini
sh grin
ding po
e
try t
o du
st?

And he s
ays sh
ut the fu
ck up g
abe! so i s
ay

Yo
ur li
ke th
e vill
age ex
plain
er is th
at it?? an
d he’s like y
eah *I’M* the
vill
age ex
plain
er, bi
tch, *I
‘M* t
he dec
i
der

and i
‘m like y
eah you
‘re like “the
village exp
la
ainy man”: e
very po
et in i
ts pl
ace or so
me sh
it, rt?

a
nd he
‘s like sh
ut th
e fuck
up g
a
be sh
ut th
e f
uc
k
up
!
a
nd he
‘s li
ke ye
ah ok s
o i
‘m the v
ill
age
or
gan...

a
nd i
‘m like st
op right th
ere!: yr th
e organ!

an
organ? he
say
s
ye
ah: an
or
gan i s
ay, an or
gan is like a
n or
chid but
mad
e o
ut of poe
try ki
lling me
at

i
‘m no
t an
or
ch
id
he
sa
ys

a
nd i
‘m like t
hat
‘s wh
at yo
u th
ink
bud
dy
th
at
's wh
at yo
u th
ink
bud

a
nd he
‘s l
ike sh
ut th
e fu
ck u
p g
abe! yo
u
‘re a fu
ck in
‘ ra
t ba
st
ar
d!

a
nd i
‘m like yo
u s
hut up R
ON!
yo
u sh
ut
up! yo
u th
ink *i
‘m* a r
at bas
tard? s
o *i
‘m* a r
at b
as
tard no
w? a
nd he
‘s like y
eah y
eah Y
OUR
a
ra
t ba
sta
rd

a
nd i
‘m l
ike f
uck yo
u to
o bu
ddy

*f*
*uc*
*k* *u* *t*
*oo*

i
t wa
s aw
fu
l real
ly real
ly aw
f
ul

l
uck
y i
wo
ke u
p
t
ho
ugh

A man, collapsed in a beach chair,
sleeps. A silver cross,
hanging from his neck, hides
an area, precisely shaped
like itself, of skin on his chest,
that will not be pink
tomorrow. His two toddlers
closer to the water, play
in the sand, while his slender
wife, in a matching chair
a few feet from him, watches.

From the outside ankle
of each chair a chain runs
and attaches itself to the inside
ankle of each of two other,
older and barely visible
children who, dressed up
in their years ago Sunday
best (It must be hot, if a little
transparent) stand and wait.

I wake with a sense of almost intolerable burden. In my left hand is a scrap of parchment with a fragmentary brightly hand-colored coat of arms, all floriated. I understand that these are the arms of the Archduke. The one who shot himself – or was murdered — at Mayerling. And it seems I know at once that this was the most critical event in European, or even world, history of its era. Strangely, the sense of burden, a personal burden I must carry or discharge, immediately lifts off me when I hear or see or say the word “Archduke” – it is replaced instead by an immense sadness. No one can do anything about that death. It is so sad. Suicide saddest, murder viler. Fully awake now I cannot endure being in bed. I get up. It is almost light. In the distance I hear a snowplow clearing the road.

I dreamed of AWP today. I found myself in the Hilton and was like "It's here already?" I walked up to the AWP badge table and the people working it gave me that "you don't belong here" look so I kept on walking. There were all these cured meats, salamis, sausages, baked chickens all around the lobby (meat market!!). I stood in line to get my room key, but realized I had to get a number beforehand (just like the post office). I got out of line and walked past all the people behind me who were now "ahead" of me. I pulled out two numbers and then . . . somehow . . . the dispenser knocked my legs from under me and I fell.

Last night a Harry Potter movie kind of dream:

first day of the year back at my old boarding school, unpleasantly
clear to me as if I'd never left - kids rushing about shouting and
pushing one another.
I'm making - unlikely - an arrangement to go out to dinner with an
old friend. Will we go in his car or mine? But first must find out
what room I have been allocated.
The information is on a very small rotating drum in a glass case set
low down, about knee height, with three rows of names in red ink on a
band of paper that passes round a small spindle, I peer at it
hopelessly, short-sightedly, can't see my name there, can hardly make
out any of the names. I begin to grumble about the poor signage, and
wonder why I'm there, at my age.

I dreamed my classes were filled with people I went to high school with. This was not cool.

dreamt
that i was playing Heiroglyphics Third Eye Vision for my mom.
that i was rolling around Boulder, CO looking at handrails.

A child's dream:

At 2:00 a.m., I wake to the sound of running. N, age 10, hurtles onto the bed and whispers in my ear, "I dreamed that people found a golden wand in a rice field."

Dream journey: Got into the food business which led me to be one of a cluster of 20 nude men that hammer pig’s feet in Tunisia, in a manner that taxes the waist, to make some sort of gravy. I started to pull raw sausage out of my mouth and the sausage turned out to be 20 feet long.