Himself A Poetsittng Poem by Daniel Brick

Sitting in a cushioned chair in his
living room, absurdly comfortable,
while he reads Georg Trakl's late poems,
the old man, himself a poet,
drifts into a shallow sleep.

He is alone in that place
of Being, where desire and dream
reflect each other, interchange
characteristics, assume
their true amorphous

dimensions, as they flow
together, create a wide delta
which further combines them,
and finally enter the vast
solvent of the inner ocean.

The currents roiling just
beneath the surface calm
of every great ocean's
infinitely rolling waves,
tumbling, twisting,

trap the old poet deeper
within the oceanic curve
of sleep. Now he will move
as if he were a creature native to
these depths, tumbling, twisting.

Deeper into sleep he plunges
unconscious but willing
to surrender to these massive
currents. A hue and cry
will be required to restore

him, whole and cogent, to
that familiar place where light
reveals desire and dream to be
things separate from each other,
each existing alone in lonely splendor.

If speech were possible (wishes will
suffice) , he would summon desire
to his presence, certain she
is the embodiment of his vision.
She is the Muse he worships.

He is the poet she blesses,
and having blessed him, she
moves on to other tasks, more
pressing than helping an old man
sing and dance in the voice and rhythms

of a young man. Such is desire.
It is ever of the past, it clings
to things already known, even loved,
things that the brightest eyes
have held steady in passionate regard:

fingers wrapped around a flower
stem, palms moist with sudden
warmth, lips tender from hard
kisses, hands sore from writing
poem after poem. Such is desire

in its natural condition...
What of dream? It has never existed,
nor will it. It is always
the very age and body of the time,
and once it has been indulged,

it slips into the shadows, exhausted,
spent, to restore its freshness.
It sleeps through days and nights,
waking briefly to listen for
the Muses' distant harmony, when

soul and body, fully awake,
will turn into a wild body and
a boisterous soul. Together they
will animate the aroused poet,
versed in vernacular, released in
spontaneity....

The old poet stirs in his cushioned
chair, slowly awakens, leans forward
to retrieve the Trakl volume which had
fallen from his grasp as he slept.
He rubs his eyes fiercely, then reads:

'I lay beneath the old willow,
the blue heaven above me was full of stars.'
Revelation and Oblivion