I’ve got a new project... and I’m going to share it as it progresses. I don’t yet know how long it will be... maybe book length. For a long time I’ve been thinking about writing a long, long, long piece of verse... verse because I especially like the language of poetry. I’m tentatively calling it Who Are These People, and What Are They Doing in my Dream? If I get partway through and the whole thing doesn’t feel right to me, I will stop. If the writing becomes something that I feel is publishable as a book, I will rearrange the sections in the way that makes most sense. This first bit, which happens to be about my mother, may finally not belong first in the longer poem.

I did an Internet seach to see if the title, "Who Are These People, and What Are They Doing in my Dream" was something that somebody had already used. Apparently nobody has, so I’m claiming it.

I like the idea that there are people who will be reading the sections as I finish them. Of course, I will edit, and re-edit, and then edit again; so the final manuscript won’t look exactly the way I present them on the BLOG. It is possible that the book will take a long time to complete, but I'm in no hurry.

I welcome comments. You can post your comments on the BLOG without being a Google Blogspot participant. When you click comment and get a space for typing, choose anonymous if you are not a Google Blogspot participant.WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE, AND WHAT ARE THEY DOING IN MY DREAM?

My mother is dead...”passed away” doesn’t do it.
That’s not what happened to her.
One year she was alive and vibrant.
The next she began to be insecure
which was for her an uncommon condition...
and then she began to forget to turn things off
like the burners on the stove and the television,
which she didn’t particularly like unless
the President was making an Oval Office speech
which she could approve or scorn depending
on whether he was a Republican or a Democrat.

One February night after the sun had appropriately set,
on the day that was, by the way, my wife’s birthday...
which is another dream altogether but
has in it some of the elements of the affair
with my Mother which had gone on
from the day I was born, which I don’t remember,
until the day she gave up the ghost... but
that’s not the way it was either because
she had absolutely no control whatsoever
over anything even her body but especially
her mind and spirit and I don’t have a clue
where her soul was on the night she died.
She lay still warm for awhile and then the verb
changed from is to was... never-to-be again...