Dreams raked from the cement sidewalk dregs of my psyche during the last week of September, 2008

The dream convenes with the mysterious blue woman in the parking lot of the seedy town where I am waiting to catch the bus. She had black hair and was dressed in a riveting blue dress. The night before I saw her sitting on her blue back pack (she wore a blue hat as well) waiting for her ride, going in the opposite direction of me. Now she sat there, again on top of her luggage like a gnome and a stump, drinking what looked like hybrid between champagne and cheap forties. She then picked up her champagne bottle before hurtling it into the pavement turning the bottle into a jigsaw of shattered i-ching shards. As I walked over to her to see if anything was wrong and if I could somehow console her an oriental manager sprung out from a nearby gas station in harangue informing me that she was sylvia plathing out of control and that I was not welcome on his premises in an effort to quell her personal demons.


I was picked up by the skinny effeminate Mexican male in a truck. He took me to a seedy hotel room where he asked if he could make love to me. When I declined he brought in two other females and one man and said I could have either one I wanted. Later in the dream we were driving through the town when I told him that I lost my bus fare back home. He then gave me a fifty and said I could have it to pay for my travel expenses. When I arrived back at the bus stop the girl in the blue dress was still sitting there, looking the opposite direction, staring over a broken pond of crystallized shards, waiting for something that would perhaps never arrive.

****

Later in the dream I found myself paddling down the bucolic slither of nature that is Turkey Run with Dougie Closen, a grade school friend of mine. Doug and I were on a canoe trip purportedly with our church youth group. I had canoed down Sugar creek with friends a month prior (we actually partied so hard we were asked to leave the campsite but that's another can of gummy worms). My Uncle Larry was the head of the group but for reasons of destiny the bevy of canoes had split up and we found ourselves alone on the creek scattered from the remainder of the adventurous herd.

The creek was serpentine and split off into many winding escheresque rivulets and tributaries.
Doug and I were certain we were loss when we duly noted an upside down canoe and scattered paddles jettisoned and bobbing as if a ship wreck has just ensued and that surely someone had drowned. As we paddled over to the wreckage we realized that we were no longer lost and that we had arrived back at our starting point destination after all. My Uncle Larry then met us at the shore and lead us into the canoe rental building where we were expected to return our vessel. The lady was upset that I had been drinking in the canoe, stating that this was a "Lutheran" campsite. I, in return, started quoting Luther's small catechism and the lyrics to "A mighty fortress is our God."

As we began to clear out the back of our canoe my uncle handed us two blue duffel bags and told us that he had captured something, insinuating that it would be best if we not open the bags. My Uncle then set out in our canoe, down the river to look for the remainders of our troops. After waiting a few hours Doug and I became curious and unzipped the blue duffel bag. Inside was bifurcated lynx that quickly severed like a dented yin-yang emblem, transitioning into two feral

Jaguars. The demonic creatures leapt out and began to terrorize the inhabitants. Doug and I ran to the top of a two story look out post rising above the river. The campsite was in panic and disarray until a wise aged African man who was some sort of modern day tribal leader appeared with a musket shot the mother jaguar, stating that her dual, the child would be able not to fend for itself without her.

***

I found myself with immortal White Sox Slugger Jim Thome, pillaging through a mountainous heap of Junk in my grandmothers old garage. I was sifting through sunken debris of my childhood and youth, looking for the springed metal bed frame on which I was conceived. When we finally came across the bed frame (burrowed, very deep, Jim and I were wading up to the caps of our knees with swollen antiques from my youth) the lady who first hired me at my job at the library eight years ago entered the garage and snapped the bed frame from us, claiming that it was rightly hers and that if I wanted to keep my employment I would obey her request and yield the springed mattress accessory. After I watched her depart I realized I was late for a reading with my mentor, the late David Foster Wallace (god rest his soul). Since his suicide many a days have been spent trying to splatter my heart on to the court of the page in homage, thanking DFW (by far the writer who has had the biggest influence on my work) for simply everything he has given.

When I arrived at the poetry reading I was informed of Foster Wallace's suicide and told that all of the poems read that evening would be dedicated in his honor. I sat at the back next to a beautiful skinned yoga-anemic black haired woman who had her up tied up into a knob on the top of her head. She was wildly scribbling out poetic images into her notebook. One of her poems was about Johnny Depp and I chided her by stating something alliterative like, "What's gaping Gilbert grape." When It was my turned to read the Mc announced my name and a thunderous applause swept through the room. I looked into the interopr of my mocha-colored satchel, the bag where all of my literary tithes are stowed only to see that I had nothing and that I stared listlessly in my satchel at the David Foster wallace reading like a ten year old boy looking into an empty trick or treat bag.

I walked halfway up to the podium and the expectant din of the crowd when Jimbo (the village drunk) came up to me, his breath heavy with the rough scent of alcohol, telling me that he believes in me.

The next day I phoned the late david foster wallace's office in Pomona, even though he had been dead for nearly half a month. When I got his perfunctory voice mail I left a message of gratitude, thanking him for everything he has giving me, telling him even (in a non gay way) that I loved him, stating; "Love you buddy." at the end of my verbal homage, a serenade of unalloyed thanksgiving for every blessing bled from the calloused swirls of his fingertips given, so freely, to the ears of those who care enough about the human experience to listen and to seek.