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When you’re tired, everything’s worse
Three poems by Kim Dower
Kim Dower is the City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood.
What It Means When You Dream
- You Bought a Red Cadillac
- it means your face is on fire
- it means your hands grab anything that moves
- it means you want to be kissing her scarlet knees
- it means you want one bloody shrieking crimson haunted wish
- to finally come true as you speed past
- your blindfolded childhood drive until your life
- finally works it means you want a ride so fast so smooth you’ll glide
- into home right through your front door no questions asked
- it means your inflamed dream is racing you into the future
- where naked people are waiting to greet you embrace you
- are lined up to jump inside the passenger seat
- it means your headache will recede into a night of fingertips
- easing the pain your back drenched against the leather
- cherry colored ignition blush like your first hot wheeled crush
- energy pulsing feet solid on the pedal touch
- your hands 10 and 2 o’clock like they taught you back then when
- all you cared about was her skirt riding up over your cool hand
- slap her thigh it hurt to look her in the eye one kiss to last all summer
Dogs and Poetry
- Last night she dreamed of dogs and poetry
- they were giving a reading in a living room
- different breeds, long-haired, handsome
- golden and chocolate, panting, stacked
- on a loft, pouncing one at a time onto center
- stage, their poems in their teeth, collies on edge
- pugs in love, shepherds fierce with loyalty,
- labs with their heads in her lap, she was sitting
- up there with them, coaching, petting, a box
- of biscuits in her lap, rewards for their words
- which astonished the audience, a miracle, so fresh,
- new, they barked in iambic pentameter, singing
- the blues these dogs were so damn cool we all
- wanted to bite them on their pink tender bellies
- we all wanted to suck their life into our tired souls
Dead Tired
- When you’re tired
- everything’s worse.
- Glimpsing a rogue hair
- spurting from the side
- of your chin is like seeing
- the end of the world.
- Have a nap your inner voice
- instructs you, have one now,
- lay down and float into the cloud
- of dreams you should have had
- last night when the heat
- kept you tossing with worry
- about people you love but can’t
- help, can’t fix, if only they’d listen,
- but you’re too tired to grouse
- so you dance naked
- through the house, singing
- loud enough to wake the dead.
- Haven’t they slept long enough?
- Time to get them out of bed.
Kim Dower is the City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. She has published three collections of poetry with Red Hen Press: Air Kissing on Mars, Slice of Moon, and Last Train to the Missing Planet. Her poems appear in several anthologies, including Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque Books), as well as journals including Rattle, Barrow Street, Ploughshares, Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, and Poem-A-Day. She teaches workshops Poetry and Dreaming and Poetry and Memory at Antioch University. More at kimdowerpoetry.com.
Here's something you might be interested in.
When you’re tired, everything’s worse
Three poems by Kim Dower
When you’re tired, everything’s worse
Three poems by Kim Dower
Kim Dower is the City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood.
What It Means When You Dream
- You Bought a Red Cadillac
- it means your face is on fire
- it means your hands grab anything that moves
- it means you want to be kissing her scarlet knees
- it means you want one bloody shrieking crimson haunted wish
- to finally come true as you speed past
- your blindfolded childhood drive until your life
- finally works it means you want a ride so fast so smooth you’ll glide
- into home right through your front door no questions asked
- it means your inflamed dream is racing you into the future
- where naked people are waiting to greet you embrace you
- are lined up to jump inside the passenger seat
- it means your headache will recede into a night of fingertips
- easing the pain your back drenched against the leather
- cherry colored ignition blush like your first hot wheeled crush
- energy pulsing feet solid on the pedal touch
- your hands 10 and 2 o’clock like they taught you back then when
- all you cared about was her skirt riding up over your cool hand
- slap her thigh it hurt to look her in the eye one kiss to last all summer
Dogs and Poetry
- Last night she dreamed of dogs and poetry
- they were giving a reading in a living room
- different breeds, long-haired, handsome
- golden and chocolate, panting, stacked
- on a loft, pouncing one at a time onto center
- stage, their poems in their teeth, collies on edge
- pugs in love, shepherds fierce with loyalty,
- labs with their heads in her lap, she was sitting
- up there with them, coaching, petting, a box
- of biscuits in her lap, rewards for their words
- which astonished the audience, a miracle, so fresh,
- new, they barked in iambic pentameter, singing
- the blues these dogs were so damn cool we all
- wanted to bite them on their pink tender bellies
- we all wanted to suck their life into our tired souls
Dead Tired
- When you’re tired
- everything’s worse.
- Glimpsing a rogue hair
- spurting from the side
- of your chin is like seeing
- the end of the world.
- Have a nap your inner voice
- instructs you, have one now,
- lay down and float into the cloud
- of dreams you should have had
- last night when the heat
- kept you tossing with worry
- about people you love but can’t
- help, can’t fix, if only they’d listen,
- but you’re too tired to grouse
- so you dance naked
- through the house, singing
- loud enough to wake the dead.
- Haven’t they slept long enough?
- Time to get them out of bed.
Kim Dower is the City Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. She has published three collections of poetry with Red Hen Press: Air Kissing on Mars, Slice of Moon, and Last Train to the Missing Planet. Her poems appear in several anthologies, including Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles and Beyond (Beyond Baroque Books), as well as journals including Rattle, Barrow Street, Ploughshares, Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac, and Poem-A-Day. She teaches workshops Poetry and Dreaming and Poetry and Memory at Antioch University. More at kimdowerpoetry.com.
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