No Sleepy

Here it is October 1st, 3:00 A.M. I am wide awake.

Last night I came home, made dinner and became so sleepy that I found myself in bed by 9:00 and out cold by what must have been 10:00. (This is uber-early time for me to actually be asleep)

Then I woke up about 30 minutes ago wide awake.

As the final wisps of my dream wafted away, I snagged a few pieces so that I could share them. I dreamed that I had written a book called Adiagnosense (No clue what meaning that word would even have) The cover of the book was high gloss and was completely black. The title was written in Times and was white. Below the title there was a thin white line and then there was a bright red apple emerging from the shadows. The apple was shifted off to the side, towards the spine of the book and also emerging from the shadows was a snake and it was biting the apple. Obvious iconology, if even a bit cliched.

Inside I had written several hundred poems that went something like:

Systematic happenstance

Casual melodrama shatters the aqueous biosphere.
writhing in sedated monotony.
Fresh off the grill,
the fog drains the contorted symmetry.
Lazily beckoning,
abrasive comforts,
vibrant indulgence,
sudden elusiveness,
hallowed trechor,
erroneous reprieve.
calamity awakens the newborn ninja.
hush...be still, for tomorrow we sleep.


It was obvious that I had written the book to mock those that gather in dark, candle lit rooms, thickly adorned in a heavy smattering of black attire and perch thick, heavy rimmed glasses on their faces. That assemble together to read poems to each other in hushed tones and overly dramatic pauses. That scour the words for meaning and derive life direction from a series of loosely strung together words. But, I was at a book signing and they whisked me away to a room that was dark, candle lit and had heavy black curtains in it and the very people I was mocking began showing up and gushing to me about how meaningful and poignant my words were for them. It was taking a lot of self control to listen to them without laughing.

I once took an interpreting literature class that I thought was somewhat interesting, but some of the ideas that were thrown out during class made me spin around in my chair and look at the commenter and think "WHAT???" I walked away from the class with a realization that there is no absolute correct interpretation of what you read. It changes depending on your perspective.

As one of the final projects for the class we were given an assignment to pick a poem or short story, research what several "professionals" had interpreted it as and then we were to write our own interpretation. I don't remember what poem I picked, but I was happy to find that with a short amount of research I quickly located several in depth interpretations, that I put into my paper. I added my own interpretation that I pulled out of nowhere... completely bluffed my way through and to my delight, actually assembled a very persuasive point of view. And then I found an interview of the author where she was specifically asked the meaning of the poem. She basically said "Um... I don't know... I just liked the meter of the words and how they sounded next to each other. I didn't pay much attention to context."

I felt duped. I felt like an archaeologist who found something mysterious at a dig. I had inspected it, analyzed it, speculated and theorized it. Then to have my studies interrupted by a colleague saying "You done playing around with my chicken club sandwich, cuz... I kind of want to finish eating it now."

Here's an art exhibit idea for any art students (if it hasn't already been done... which it probably has) create a 3D sculpture and place it in the center of a round bubble maybe 10, 20 or 30 feet in radius. paint the inside of the bubble white and the outside black. Leave random slits in the bubble to peek in at the 3D sculpture. Make sure that every slit in the bubble reveals a completely new feature to the sculpture so that it almost looks like a different object from each slit.

On a more serious note, I would comment that this is a metaphor of how I think life is. That is the reason I will never get in an argument about ideologies like politics or religion. From my view of the sculpture I could be standing here yelling at you that I see a hammer and from your view of the sculpture you are standing there yelling at me that you see a pink flamingo. If you ask an orphan, a war veteran, and a college student about either of these topics, you will get a varied array of answers. I think there are absolute truths that the author, sculptor, and the creator know, but I also think that is the beauty of art and scripture, your interpretation can change almost by the minute depending on what your current perspective is. Your interpretation is enlightening, relevant and hopefully beneficial and then your perspective changes. Wow! sorry, that was a deep and thoughtful post. Here is yet another glaring example of the ill effects of insomnia.