The Ghent Review Volume1, Number 1, summer 2016 | Page 16

David Hayden
Dream song the mermaids murmured
Come to me
Come to me
Come to me
Like water songs in a dream landscape…
Light
a watery darkness also
but light, light, light
(what do these words mean when faced by beauty or its absence?)
the double vision of one, or any, who look where an artist has marked out the
passage from negation (read here the gates of hell) to the archway of affirmation
(which may be no the gates to Dante’s paradise)
sinners and singers unite
the song of praise batters down the closed door
here the monologue becomes a dialogue
it is Electra sighing in the wind
it is Cassandra with her prophecies
it is here that you hear singing a fruitful ditty, for a moment, in the wilderness of
the mind
who now are the angels bring joy and terror?
who are the dancers?
who the star-gazers gazing at the sky where no stars are as if traffic with the foolish
world was a burden but also a necessity?
I hear singing
I see dancing
I am not immune to the outlines of my age all be it not according to your approval
hence (o beautiful word) my dreams defy the circumstance in which they are
experienced
and I will give my song every latitude to accomplish itself
and the turbines
like Blake’s mills
turning, churning, turning
(of this o my people you have an imperfect knowledge)
hence light
hence dark