I dreamt I was walking on a residential city street late at night, smoking a hand-rolled cigarette.  A police car suddenly pulled up next to me.  Even though it wasn’t pot, I chucked the cig, so there wouldn’t be an appearance of impropriety.  The policeman emerged covered from head to toe in high-tech armor, especially his head.  He looked like a gigantic insect or alien.  I gasped in fear.  He reached for his gun and said, “What?”  “You frightened me,” I said.  He took me to a mobile outdoor police station, basically a vehicle with an open trunk.  Several other perps waited there to pay fines and fill out paperwork.  I only had to fill out paperwork.  There was no fine for me, which was slightly surprising, but seemed right, since I hadn’t done anything wrong.  As I was leaving, the cops asked if I had seen much tennis lately, which was also slightly surprising.  I told them very cheerfully that I had played a lot of tennis and hoped to play more.  Then I walked away into the late, late night.

  

*

I dreamt I was sitting next to an Italian guy on a bench in Venice.  We started talking to each other in Italian about Italian poetry, going through all the great names.  I mentioned Giovanni Pascoli, to his delight, then Guido Gozzano.  Then, we turned to Eugenio Montale.  He said that late in life Montale had frequented places like this.  He pointed to a twisting covered passageway with an outdoor restaurant by the entrance.  “Montale would eat a hamburger at a place like that.”  I decided to eat there.  A waitress came up to me.  We spoke Italian.  I struggled to communicate with her in exactly the same way that I would struggle to communicate with someone in Italian if I were awake, making the same language decisions, the same compromises to communicate something.  I ordered a hamburger, but then was surprised when a waiter brought a bowl of soup, which didn’t have much soup in it, but was “all crackers.”  I hoped it didn’t cost much.

*

I dreamt I was visiting my mother, who died four months ago.  She was dying in a big bedroom upstairs in a suburban house.  I was very upset, thinking she was about to die, but then she seemed a little better.  I went from there to a Camp Kennebec reunion at a party place.  Not connecting with the people well, I wandered into another room, downstairs, that I thought was part of the same party.  But the kids were really young, the boys short.  It must have been a bar mitzvah party.  I walked out of the catering place.  On the way down the long driveway, I encountered my friend Peter Saenger.  I walked with him back into the catering place.  Inside, I noticed a program for a classical-music concert that would be taking place shortly.  It was an amazing program, with many pieces.  Sadly, for me, it was sold out.  Peter Saenger had a ticket and went inside.  I picked up the program, thinking that if I saved it, I would remember to go to the concert next year.  I wandered into a gift shop.  It occurred to me that I would wind up putting the program somewhere and forgetting it by the time the concert came around next year.  Maybe I should just throw the program away.  As I walked out of the gift shop without buying anything, I worried they would think the program in my hand was something that I hadn't paid for, but no one bothered me.

Long conversation with Peter Culley two nights ago in a dream. Going over the 1970s, sharing his secrets. As always, with Peter, a deep feeling of ease and affect. He was, since the first moment, "uno di famiglia," a member of the family. There is a spot in the front yard where we all stood during his last visit to Bangor -- it feels occupied as if something had been planted and is just about to burst from the ground. Any moment now. Always now.

Dreamt that they bombed Upaya North. Not sure who they is/was. But in the dream, Upaya was this cool looking library / classroom w/ media. I was teaching my final class of a workshop for the term. And we had to move to the Ginsberg Library due to the destruction. GL was this amazing space w/ a spiral staircase that went to a basement and the decor was 1970s chic. And the walls were red. A plush fabric. With funky bean bag chairs. And beads at doorways or on the wall. With green accents. And the students performed a somatic symphony. On a stage. In the library. I can still hear the cello.

Nightmare I was writing a research paper on midcentury modern furniture and I had four sources: a chair, another chair, a chair, and an iPhone upholstered to look like a midcentury modern couch.

Last night I dreamed friends were coming for Thanksgiving dinner. I was in a penthouse where I had never lived before, and I wasn't sure how many people I'd invited or when I'd told them to come. Things had been complicated because I'd just been involved in a train accident (not my fault) although I was able to recover my computer, but not my guitar, which was both unfortunate and fortunate, because I was due to give a concert with the poet Elaine Equi (which is why I was on the train) and I hadn't rehearsed at all. Were Jewish friends coming for dinner, could I somehow get a kosher turkey in time? Here it was already noon, and I hadn't even done the shopping. How was I even going to get a turkey, much less a kosher one, at this late hour? Harry Kresky, a friend I like but never see texted me with the question: "Is it at 1?" My God, how many friends had I invited? What was I going to do? Akram and I went quickly to shop. We were going to have to buy a lot of wine too to keep guests busy doing something—my plan was to get them all drunk—till all the food was done. Maybe they'd let us borrow a shopping cart at the supermarket to get everything back to the penthouse. Turkey, yams, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes—Yikes! Outside was like a suburb of Shanghai near the water or maybe more like a favela in Rio. Either way, where was a supermarket? And could I speak the language? The alarm clock rang. Have I ever been so happy to wake up? Well, I have. Usually I am trying to catch a plane for Paris with endless complications getting to and being at the airport (usually there is marijuana in my luggage when I am going through customs and how am I going to get rid of that?—Quick, to the bathroom!), or I am about to teach a class I haven't prepared for and have to ad lib the whole darned curriculum. Thanksgiving dinner is a new one. Must be the season. I am going to the gym to do the bike, lift some weights, have a nice sauna and sweat whatever the heck this anxiety is out.